EYP Talk - Your voice on Europe's future. This is the online forum of the European Youth Parliament in the UK.

Free movement of workers

Does the free movement of workers across borders assure peace and prosperity?

The panellist in this discussion is:

Roland Rudd
Chairman, Business for New Europe

Roland Rudd is the Chairman of Business for New Europe, which launched in March 2006 to support the UK’s active engagement in Europe. BNE is an independent coalition of business leaders articulating a positive case for European reform. He is also the Senior Partner of Finsbury Ltd.

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The other side

Posted by Michael Leyland on 08/02/2007 - 19:07

There does seem to be much debate to be had regarding the impact of ‘foreign workers’ on the British economy, however I would like to widen this debate in order to consider the impact this movement of workers can have on the country of origin.

As Chris pointed out in his post, there is another side to this movement of workers and that is the side of the countries who are losing large numbers of their working population, with many workers being tempted by the prospect of a higher wage in a more economically developed country. Most notably in Germany immigrant workers have been used to fill the void left by an ageing population, however this only leads to even greater gaps appearing in the labour market of the countries in which these workers are coming from.

Whilst this movement of workers may boost the economy of larger European nations it can actually have a negative impact on smaller and often newer member states. In this sense isn’t this free movement of workers working in the opposite way to Robin Hood in taking from the poor to give to the rich?!

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