UNIONS reacted with ambivalence to Tuesday’s news that the island’s labour market would be opened to Bulgarians and Romanians without restrictions as of January 1, 2007. While expressing concern about unemployment levels and low wages, most believed there were enough low-tier jobs to fill.
On Tuesday the cabinet decided to open the labour market to the two countries, although several other EU member states, notably Britain and Ireland, have reversed their open-door policy in the wake of an influx of Polish and other former Eastern bloc country workers after they joined the EU in 2004.
The cabinet said that they maintained the right to put restrictions in place if the unrestricted opening proved to have negative effects on the domestic labour market.
General Secretary of the small shopkeeper’s union POVEK Stefanos Koursaris told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that the effects of the decision will depend on what kind of workers come to Cyprus.
He noted that due to its small economy, Cyprus was especially vulnerable to large influxes of foreign labour.
“That’s why we must set limits and be very careful,” he said, then adding that it was doubtful the government would impose restrictions. “We like to show Europe that we are the good boys to everybody.”
Koursaris said that the worst thing about such an open door policy is that the foreign workers are paid less than domestic workers, which causes wages to plummet. He also pointed to possible adverse effects on unemployment.
“If they increase unemployment in Cyprus, which is at five per cent, then it will be negative,” Koursaris said. “But if the workers come for jobs in which there are presently few or no Cypriots – like farming, animal husbandry, washing cars and pumping gas – then it will be OK.”
Chairman of the Employers and Industrialists Federation OEV Michael Pilikos considered the open-door decision a “positive advancement” and hoped that it would “reduce the problem of an insufficient workforce”.
He also disputed that unemployment in Cyprus was at five per cent, which he said was merely a poll result, noting that the official registered unemployment figure was around 3.3 per cent, with long-term unemployment (at least six months) at 0.8 per cent.
Deputy General Secretary of trade union PEO Soteris Fellas took a middle ground on the cabinet decision, claiming that the union would stand by the government decision so long as it corresponded to the policy taken by most European countries.
“If it’s just one country [imposing restrictions] like the UK, which has a special situation, than that’s all right,” Fellas said. “But if most of Europe is putting limits on Bulgarian and Romanian workers, then we should too.”
Last month Greece said it too would not place restrictions on workers from Romania and Bulgaria, while France is only partly opening its doors to the two countries.
The two next EU member states
ON SEPTEMBER 26, the European Commission published a report recommending that the leaders of the 25-nation bloc admit Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union on January 1, 2007, although unprecedented safeguards have been attached to their first three years of membership.
Many EU citizens in the more economically developed countries fear a flood of immigrants from the two countries in search of higher living standards.
With 30 million people, the two Balkan nations will make up six per cent of the EU’s population but less than one per cent of its GDP.
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