International

If it were up to the majority in the European Parliament, all restrictions on the free movement of workers from any member state would be immediately abolished. SP Euro-MP Erik Meijer opposed the resolution carried today at the EP's plenary in Strasbourg on the grounds that it was premature. "The limited right of entry to the labour market that exists is already leading to difficulties, to the closing down of whole sectors including road haulage and pressure on the principle of equal pay for equal work,” he explained.

Secretary of State for Social Affairs and Employment Henk van Hoof is seeking to delay the opening of borders to workers from the new EU member states until 1st January 2007 instead of the coming 1st May, as previously announced. SP Member of Parliament Jan de Wit, however, is not convinced that the government, despite its statement to the contrary, will in seven months' time have the measures in place which are needed to deal satisfactorily with evasion of labour laws and with unfair competition. “Mr Van Hoof clearly has a completely erroneous picture of the consequences which will follow the opening of borders. In Ireland they have had two years' experience of this and fully 5% of the workforce is now Polish. Even if the proportion of our workforce turned out to be half of this, we'd be talking about 175,000 people. But of course the Netherlands is rather nearer to Poland than is Ireland, and Poland is not the only new EU member state, so the proportion would probably be greater rather than smaller.