The European Commission (EC) adopted on Thursday the decision to approve Spain's request to restrict access of Romanian workers on its labor market until December 31, 2012. These restrictions will apply to activities in all sectors and regions, but it will not affect Romanian nationals who are already active on the Spanish labor market, according to EC.

“This decision has been taken because of the very specific employment situation in Spain. The Spanish request is supported by factual evidence and the Accession Treaty does allow the re-imposition of temporary restrictive measures in such cases. By implementing these changes, Spain would still remain more open to workers from new Member States than some other Member States”, said Commissioner Laszlo Andor, European Commissioner responsible for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.

These temporary restrictions are approved by the European Commission in the current economic situation in Spain. The country is facing serious labor market disturbances, characterized by the highest unemployment rate in the EU, 21 percent in June 2011, against 9.4 percent on average in the EU and 9.9 percent in the euro area, and a slow economic recovery of only 0.3 percent of GDP growth in the first quarter of 2011.

Romanians living in Spain are also strongly affected by unemployment, 30 percent of them are unemployed, according to an analysis made by the Commission. Almost 200,000 Romanian citizens working in Spain were unemployed in the first quarter of 2011, compared to 80,100 reported three years earlier.

In general, free movement of workers has had a positive economic impact at the European scale and has produced economic growth in the receiving countries. Recent estimates suggest that the long-term impact of the population flows between 2004 and 2009 on the GDP of the EU-15 was an extra 0.9 percent, according to EC.

The European Commission will further inform the Council of its decision and any Member State may request the Council to amend or annul the Commission's decision on the suspension of EU law within two working weeks.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Sxc.hu)