Article: The business case for more migrants
BUSINESS for a New Europe, which seeks to promote Britain's positive engagement with the European Union, has entered the politically-charged arena of EU expansion. It has issued a statement robustly supporting the admission of workers from Bulgaria and Romania, which join the EU next year.
The intervention sharpens the debate already raging over levels of immigration: last week official figures confirmed that more than 600,000 workers have come to Britain from new member states in the past two years, in contrast to the Government's previous estimate of just 13,000. This influx is a logical consequence of longstanding British policy towards the EU. We wanted a broader and more inclusive Europe, rather than a deeper, federal Union, dominated by France and Germany. This is one of the results.
Business for a New Europe supports the admission of Bulgarians and Romanians on the grounds that they will be essential to economic growth. That approach is shared neither by the Government - which has stalled on the question - nor the Conservatives, who have called for restrictions.
The organisation is right to point out that the country has greatly benefited from the advent of Poles, Slovaks and the rest. It is hard to imagine how the service sector of London could cope without them. Eastern Europeans have filled crucial skills gaps, not only because they are generally low-cost in terms of wages, but because they have skills and a work ethic which many British school leavers lack.
Nonetheless, all parties are beginning to realise that there may eventually be a strain on housing and public services. Part of the answer must be to cut back on immigration from outside the EU to take account of the numbers coming here from within it. But in any case, EU states can only temporarily close their labour markets to other citizens of the Union, for a maximum of seven years. Sooner or later, the Bulgarians and Romanians will have every right to come: the Government should now decide how best we can use the new workers to benefit our economy.
