Britain to continue restrictions on Bulgaria and Romania

The government has announced that it will be extending restrictions on workers from Bulgaria and Romania until the allowed 2011 in order to limit the effects of the recession upon the UK.

In an announcement made Tuesday Immigration Minister Phil Woolas confirmed that it will allow close to 25,000 Romanian and Bulgarian low-skilled workers to enter the UK for work in the areas of food processing and agriculture. This is a continuation of the quota system currently used.

Romania and Bulgaria were admitted to the European Union in 2007 at which time Britain imposed limits on migration to both countries. Under EU rules the UK renewed the limits last year and will again do so up until 2011 at this stage. The UK can impose restrictions for a total of 7 years in line with the EU ruling.

Mr Woolas said the decision to retain restrictions was done with the local labour market in mind and was for the protection of the resident workforce. British unemployment has risen by close to 90,000 in the past three months and now stands at 2.469 million, or at a ratio of 7.9%.

The looming general election means that Gordon Brown’s Labour Party, lagging badly in the polls, cannot afford to allow any new disrupt among the nation’s already strained workforce. With immigration increasingly under the electoral spotlight the government has deemed now is not the right time to be making changes. The high rate of immigration that took place after 2004 has given rise to a groundswell of backlash against the UK government being the only one of the major EU nations that let new member citizens in without restriction.