At a recent conference on immigration issues Jack Dromey, the Secretary General of the TUC, told a story about a complaint he had received from trade union leaders concerning the use of Polish building workers. After listening to their tirade he reminded both officials that they were Irish and exactly the same complaints had been made against their grandfathers – without benevolent UK immigration policies the trade union men would not have been there.

Britain and Ireland were the only countries to offer full work and benefit rights to the 73 million Eastern European citizens who joined the European Union in 2004. A European Commission spokesman at the time said, “All our studies show that there will be a fairly limited movement.” Whilst the official UK estimate was that between 5,000 and 13,000 individuals a year would arrive, the actual figure from May 2004 to June 2006 was 627,000.

The management of the Workers Registration Scheme by Work Permits (UK) caused a huge backlog of work permit applications due to the prioritisation of Eastern European applications.

Ministers are currently deciding what approach to take towards Bulgaria and Romania. With the UK showing a record 60.2 million population, it is unlikely in the current climate that the Government will treat Bulgarian and Romanian citizens as favourably as migrants from the 2004 accession member states.

Julia Onslow-Cole, CMS Cameron McKenna LLP, Partner and Head of Global Immigration Team

Watch this space, and let us know if you would be interested in a special immigration update lunchtime event this autumn – email events@relocatemagazine.com.

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