As of January 1 Bulgarian and Romanian citizens are free to work in the countries of the EU with no restrictions. According to the European Commission, the bulk of the immigration potential is spent, because more than three million people from the last two countries to have joined the EU already live and work in other members of the EU. Nevertheless, Great Britain is in the grips of mass hysteria due to the imaginary hordes of Bulgarians and Romanians coming to take advantage of UK’s social security system. The British press made its own contribution to this negative campaign, culminating in David Cameron’s idea of restrictive measures. The reason, according to political analyst Yoanna Balchova, who works in London, is in the inability of the Tory leader to keep his promise of cutting down on immigration in Great Britain down to less than 100,000 by 2015.

“So, what do we have? In the period from the summer of 2012 to the summer of 2013 we have 175,000 net immigrants – people who are going to stay here,” Yoanna says. “Reducing the number of immigrants is a priority in his election programme. The people who cast their votes for Cameron in 2010 realize the promises are not being kept. After the economic crisis in 2008 there followed a stagnation. Every major European economy has been trying to recover; the Tories are even talking of growth. Migrants have been the casualties in a situation in which things have not been changing as quickly as the government has been promising. What we have here is a race for the diminishing resources, if I could put it that way.”

The allegations that 29 million Bulgarians and Romanians are out to “raid” the UK are unrealistic not just because the sumtotal of the two countries’ populations is less than that number, but also because official data paint a very different picture. One in 1,000 British citizens is of Bulgarian origin and one in 600 people out of a job is Bulgarian. There are only 148 Bulgarian women in the UK who are paid maternity benefits. At the same time Bulgarian and Romanian university students pay a total of 30 million pounds in tuition fees as well as for their upkeep. This shows that the Bulgarians in Great Britain are there to study and work and not to benefit from the social security system.

The opening up of the labour market to Bulgarian and Romanian nationals created the first serious fissures in the new ruling coalition in Germany. That is reason why, at the first cabinet sitting, Chancellor Angela Merkel asked that the discussion on the risks of an influx of Bulgarians and Romanians into Germany be put an end to. From now on this problem will only be tackled by the designated government committee:

“The idea that Bulgarians and Romanians come here to take advantage of the tempting social benefits in Germany, has persistently been put forth by the Bavarian conservatives from the Christian Democratic Union”, comments Emilian Lilov from the Deutsche Welle Bulgarian language service. How justified these apprehensions are and what preventive measures have to be taken – this is a matter for the committee in question, comprising experts from almost all ministries with the exception of three – the Ministry of Defence, of Transport and of Development and with the participation of Aydan Özoguz who is in charge of migration in the German government.”

There are 155,000 Bulgarian and Romanian nationals currently working and living in Germany. :

“More than 20 percent of the Bulgarians in Germany have university degrees, another 18 percent are studying at university or for a profession", Emilian Lilov goes on to say. "They are all people who have a good professional qualification, or people who are about to obtain it. There is a third group of around 35 percent who are in an intermediate position – they have a professional education but work mostly as hospital orderlies or nurses. The conclusion – they are not migrants for reasons of poverty, they are labour migrants of the kind that exist in so many other countries. As to the fears that there are among the migrants people who abuse the social benefit system in Germany, I can say the following: there are no more than 100 such instances registered to this moment. The practice is far from widespread, these cases are more of an exception. The apprehensions that many of the migrants receive German child benefits are not justified either. Only 8.8 percent of the Bulgarians and Romanians in Germany receive benefits. Whereas this percentage is almost double – 15 percent – among the other national groups. To this moment there are no indications of any major social benefit scams. This is the reason why there is absolutely no cause to point a finger at the Bulgarians and Romanians. And I expect the aforementioned committee to reach just such a conclusion,”

English version: Milena Daynova