European Union: enlargement and the free movement of labor

Abstract

The EU free movement regime possibly represents “the most open cross‐state movement policy worldwide” (Recchi 2006: 71). European Union citizens have the right to move to any other EU member state and take up residency and employment. However, when eight former socialist countries from Central and East Europe acceded to the EU in 2004 and 2007, most “old” EU‐15 member states restricted access to their labor markets because of concerns that labor mobility from the new member states (NMS) could undermine wages and employment conditions. In spite of these restrictions, and importantly because a small number of EU‐15 countries immediately opened their labor market, enlargement has triggered a new wave of labor mobility in Europe. Since 2004, tens of thousands of mainly young NMS citizens have “gone West.” The often‐lamented “immobile European” appears to be a thing of the past. Before we assess the scale and impact of recent East–West migration, we will first trace the evolution of the EU free movement regime.