unoriginalname38 – the blog of Dave Cole

Romania and Bulgaria

Former CPGB member John Reid has announced his five-year plan (actually, I think it's a seven-year plan) for immigration from Romania and Bulgaria when they join the European Union.

Something like 600,000 Poles have come to the UK since their state acceeded to the EU. They were able to go to only three of the existing members (and are, until the seven year period expires, second class citizens); the UK, Eire and the other one that I've forgotten. If the 600,000 were spread out across the EU, the effect would be rather less. The UK has more or less managed without any serious problems the arrival (albeit on a temporary basis) of quite a lot of people.

I cannot help but feel that encouraging the other EU members to adopt a similar policy would be rather better than throwing up these restrictions. Bulgarians are more likely to go to Spain (I've met a few there over the years that I've worked there) and Romanian is pretty close to Spanish, Portuguese and Italian (ROMANian is a giveaway as to where they're from; they used to be the Dacians).

I don't like gesturing to the readership of the Daily Mail; it pushes them to outright racism when discussing Islam, for starters. We end up going from the 'protecting British jobs' line to yours truly always having to say how patriotic he is even though I consider someone in Romania to be the equal of someone in the UK or anywhere else.

xD.

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