Public Fears – A Question of Scale | Zuwanderung, Flucht und Asyl: Aktuelle Themen | bpb.de

In 2004, 75% of Germans surveyed expected unemployment to rise following the accession of the Central and Eastern European states; only 28% welcomed the expansion. In France, the 'Polish plumber' became a symbol for a perceived threat to the national labour market due to EU expansion, a perception that helped fuel France´s rejection of the EU Constitution in May 2005.

Attempts by economists and other researchers to predict the number of labour migrants from Central and Eastern Europe came to varying conclusions . Calculations based on econometric models predicted that 4-7% of the total population of the EU8 countries, or approximately 3-5 million people, would move to the EU15 to take up employment. Surveys focusing on willingness of EU8 residents to migrate to the EU15 concluded that 1-4% of the total population of the EU8 countries, or about 1-3 million people, would be willing to take up employment in the EU15. Depending on the scenario, these predictions would have meant an average annual migration of 200,000 workers a year or more from the EU8 to the EU15. However, the surveys emphasised that it was unclear how long any of these migrants were interested in remaining in the EU15; the vast majority expressed an interest in living and working abroad for a period of one to five years, while only a small minority expressed an interest in emigrating permanently.

A look at the southern enlargement of the EU suggested that a large inflow of labour migrants was not to be expected. Following the accession of Spain, Portugal and Greece to the EU in the 1980s, relatively little migration took place between the new and old member states; the number of migrants even declined slightly. It was argued, however, that the case of these countries was not comparable to the case of the EU8, as the wage difference between the latter and the EU15 was going to be much higher at the time of their accession than had been the case for Spain, Portugal or Greece.

In light of the number of Central and Eastern European labour migrants anticipated, Germany and Austria were particularly concerned that they would be the recipients of the majority of labour migrants from the EU8, given their geographical proximity to those countries; a proximity that was not there in the case of Spain, Portugal and Greece's accession to the EU. Fears surrounding this geographical proximity were increased by the fact that approximately 80% of the migrant workers arriving from Central and Eastern Europe since the fall of the Iron Curtain have chosen Germany or Austria as their destination.

Two years after accession, it is possible to examine the preliminary experiences of those EU15 countries that chose to allow the unrestricted free movement of workers and to ask whether it makes sense for Germany to continue to disallow it.