A cautious welcome

The news bulletins over the Christmas holiday were dominated by the vengeful execution of the deposed leader of a ruinous country. The leader, of course, was Nicolae Ceaucescu, the country Romania and the year 1989. That Romania, together with Bulgaria, has just made the then unthinkable step of joining the European Union — the conditions of membership of which have required it to prove it is a modern democratic nation — ought to be a matter for celebration in its own right. Moreover, it should provide some optimism as to how far Iraq — though hardly likely ever to become a member of the EU — might have travelled as post-totalitarian democracy in 17 or 18 years’ time.

The accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU on 1 January has, however, not been received positively. The presiding emotion in this country has been one of anxiety: anxiety that migrant workers from the two new member countries will take the jobs of British workers, claim benefits paid for by British taxpayers and add to the desperate shortage of affordable accommodation in London and the south-east. As passionately as The Spectator believes in free markets, including free labour markets, it would be quite wrong to dismiss these fears — not least because the government has been proved wildly wrong in its estimates of the number of migrant workers who would travel to Britain after the last wave of Eastern European nations joined the EU, on 1 May 2004. Prior to that date, ministers sought to reassure the public by predicting that in the first two years of membership just 26,000 Poles, Czechs and other Eastern Europeans would come to Britain to work. In the event, 427,000 registered to do so. Many more — possibly 200,000 according to one estimate — are likely to be working here without registering.