Unadvisable Moves Afoot in Romania and Bulgaria

Civitas, 6 October 2006

The British government is widely reported to be as yet undecided whether to allow Bulgarian and Romanian nationals the right to work in the UK upon their countries joining the EU next year. Regardless of whether it does, come the accession of their countries to the EU, Bulgarians and Romanians will as citizens of the EU be able to enter Britain freely.
In anticipation of that day, it was reported last month in the Daily Telegraph that Romanians and Bulgarians have been busy queuing up to obtain passports to enable them to leave as soon as it arrives.
The British government was profoundly embarrassed by its gross underestimate of the numbers of East Europeans whose countries acceded to the EU in May 2004 who migrated to Britain to obtain jobs. They predicted only 13,000 would come. To date, at least 345,000 have.
Could it be to spare itself similar embarrassment of discovering correspondingly large numbers of Bulgarians and Romanians show up in Britain come accession day, irrespective of whether they have been granted the right to work here, that, as was reported in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, Britain is about to lift visa restrictions on Romania and Bulgaria in advance of their accession? The more allowed in prior to their accession the smaller will the head-line figure be of those arriving come that day.

No one should begrudge Romanians and Bulgarians the opportunity to escape the grinding poverty to which years of communist misrule subjected them. But surely there’s a better way in which their lot could be ameliorated that does not involve their coming here to under-price British workers and place greater strains on the country’s infrastructure?
Since 2004, the rich in Britain have been getting richer and the poor poorer. Although East European migrant workers for the moment might be commanding much greater incomes than they ever have before, in the long run, will they be better off by having uprooted themselves in this fashion? And will the countries that they have left have gained anything by their departure?
Similarly, if Britain finds itself with several hundred thousand additional new East Europeans tohouse and transport to and from work in its over-crowded south, will British nationals have gained by their arrival, save that metropolitan elite who will have thereby acquired even cheaper gardeners, nannies, waiters, builders and whatever?