Romanian Labor Minister Sebastian Lazaroiu and his Bulgarian counterpart Totyu Mladenov have sent Andor a joint letter, asking for a Commission report on the free movement of workers, to be used as a basis for decision-making before the review of the restrictions, scheduled for the end of this year.
“We strongly believe that such a report would help member states which still uphold restrictions on their labor market for Bulgarian and Romanian nationals to take a positive decision for the restrictions to be lifted,” reads the letter, cited by Novinite.
“We believe that the free movement of workers must become a reality and that transitional measures should be removed at least two reasons: the free movement of workers is a fundamental right in the EU and the types of migration from new member states do not justify these measures,” say the ministers in the letter.
Novinite.com considers the joint effort by the Romanian and Bulgarian ministers is not very likely to succeed, reminding that Austrian Labor Minister Rudolph Hundstorfer estimated that ten major EU members will keep the restrictions until 2014. While he did not name the specific states, the minister was probably referring to the ten that still maintain these restrictions: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.