Europe Immigration News

Non-EU nationals who want to work in the Netherlands might not need work permits in the future if they will earn more than EUR 45,000/year.

This plan is set to come into effect on 1 October 2004 and means that such high-earners will be issued with a residence permit instead valid for up to five years.

The Irish government released figures earlier this month that show that there has been a sharp rise in the number of workers from new EU member states seeking work in Ireland since 1 May 2004.

The government report shows that almost 23,000 people from the new member states have come to Ireland to seek employment in the past three months since enlargement.

This is approximately ten times the number of work permits issued to people from the same ten countries from January to April of this year.

Germany's left-leaning government has finally reached a compromise with the conservative opposition and have agreed a legislative bill on immigration reform in the country.

The new immigration law includes measures to attract highly skilled foreigners, calls for better efforts to integrate foreigners in German society, reforms the rules on granting asylum and will make it easier and quicker to expel any foreigners deemed to be a security threat.

A report from an Irish job agency has claimed that there are over 500,000 jobs in the UK for East and Central Europeans to fill.

In the report, a representative of this Irish job agency stated that some 360,000 people from Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland are expected to apply for jobs in the UK each year. This report comes amidst fears across the "old" 15 EU member states that there will be an influx of job-seekers from the 10 new EU member states.

In a Parliament session yesterday, MPs rejected a proposal made by the Social Democrat party in power to restrict the entry of workers from the new EU accession countries.

This means that Sweden will be only the third EU country joining Ireland and the UK in deciding to open its labour market to citizens of the new EU member states. Unlike in the UK and Ireland, however, who will restrict access to welfare benefits, these new workers from Central and Eastern Europe will only have to work ten hours a week to qualify for access to social security provisions.

The European Commission is planning to propose measures aimed at making easier movement of non-EU nationals who hold resident permits in the current EU-15 but who would need a visa to transit through the ten new EU entrants. These measures would apply to, for example, Indian nationals holding a work and residence permit in France but who wish to travel to Hungary or the Czech Republic for a holiday. This would not apply to non-visa nationals to the EU such as citizens of America, Canadia, Australia, Japan, etc.