'free movement of workforce' - tagged features

Romania joined the European Union on January the 1st 2007. Initially the West feared a massive wave of immigration from Romania and Bulgaria. It wasn’t really like that. Romanians have continued to go to work in Italy and Spain as they used to do before Romania’s entry in the EU. But in recent months, Italian and Spanish newspapers have abounded in rather unflattering articles about the Romanian community there, which is the biggest foreign community in Italy, numbering according to official figures half a million Romanians. 

Growing numbers of Poles are opening business and taking up jobs in neighbouring countries such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Initially, most of these Polish job seekers went to the UK, Ireland and Sweden, which were the first to open up their labour markets. But increasingly, Poles are discovering that they can easily fill niches in labour markets closer to home. Radio Polonia reports.