Arbeidsmigratie uit Oost-Europa valt mee (en)

EUOBSERVER /BRUSSELS - There has been no mass influx of workers from the new EU member states to the UK since enlargement, according to new figures.

Data from the British Home Office released on Wednesday (7 July) reveals that after 1 May - the day the European Union enlarged by 10 new members - just over 8000 "new Europeans" entered Britain to work legally.

"The predicted dramatic increase of new arrivals has not materialized", the Home office concludes in a press release.

The UK is one of the few EU countries that opened their labour markets to workers from the new member states, along with Ireland and Sweden.

Workers need to register in Britain under a special "Worker Registration Scheme" - whereby the authorities can monitor the numbers of labourers who entered the country.

The report by the Home Office states that of around 24,000 applicants to the scheme, at least 14,400 were already living in the UK before 1 May.

While UK authorities have placed no restrictions on numbers of workers from the new EU states, they did limit access to social benefits for new EU citizens living in Britain.

But only a small minority of immigrants have actually attempted to profit from UK social security, the Home Office's data show.

The British Home secretary David Blunkett said: "By contributing to our economy and paying into the system these accession state workers are supporting our public services, not being a drain upon them".

Experts not surprised

Although the UK government clearly wants to counteract fears fuelled by the tabloid press of a "flood" of new immigrants, independent researchers say the data are genuine and meet up to their expectations.

Joanna Apap, a researcher for the Centre for European Policy Studies, told the EUobserver: "These facts confirm what we had already predicted: No invasion of immigrants has taken place, exactly like after the previous enlargement of the EU with Spain and Portugal ".

Elspeth Guild, partner at the leading London law firm Kingsley Napley and an immigration expert, said: "This is nothing surprising. After the summer working season we will even see figures fall dramatically".

Ireland and Sweden, the two other EU countries that have granted unlimited access to their labour markets, are not yet expected to publish similar assessments.

Both countries do not work with a system of workers registration, and they therefore do not have data easily available.

But experts and British and Irish officials say that there is no sign that Ireland and Sweden are being "flooded" with workers from new EU states either.