18/08/2005 12:35:09 pm
To Protect the Past and Prevent the New. The Austrian government just announced that they will prolong the period with restrictions for labour from the ten new EU countries with another three years. It may last until 2011 in the end. This is not only a fine way to show these Europeans that they are B-citizens, it is also a perfect way to take away one of the really big benefits of the EU. Free mobility for labour in a large, single, market is a founding idea behind the EU. It is also one with great benefits in terms of jobs and prosperity. Polish plumbers and Latvian construction workers should be welcome in Western Europe. When old jobs disappear - or someone else comes and performs them - resources are liberated to to new things that are not being done today.

In a decade or two, we will see what kinds of jobs that came to replace the old industries and manufacturing jobs. They will most likely have come in services, like IT, design, health care, biotech. But with current policies, the new companies and jobs will be few and late. And we will ask ourselves why we were so eager to protect the old at any cost: Why didn′t we do all we could to make space for all the new jobs; more well-paid, more interesting. Hopefully, Western European policies will change so we don′t have to ask such questions. But we can′t be sure.

Read more about the Austrian decision here - >