Postări
Joakim Ruist, University of Gotteborg, January 2014
Romanian and Bulgarian migration to EU15 countries is currently at the very center of the political debate in the EU. Most EU15 countries limited Romanian and Bulgarian citizens’ access to their labor markets and welfare systems until the end of 2013, for fears of poor migrants otherwise arriving in large numbers and draining public finances in the wealthier EU15 countries. From January 1st, 2014 EU law forced these restrictions to be lifted, and this made 2013 a year of intense political discussions about the free movement of workers, which is one of the pillars of the union. This debate has gone furthest in the UK, where a large
number of MPs support a bill that would challenge EU law and extend access restrictions by another five years.
At the same time two countries – Sweden and Finland – never imposed any restrictions in 2007 when Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU. The experience of any of these two countries thus has the potential to provide empirical information on whether the perceived threat of non-restricted migration draining public finances is real or not. The present study has shown that in the Swedish case this perception is actually far from reality.
Instead the average Romanian or Bulgarian immigrant who arrived after January 2007 made a large positive contribution to Swedish public finances in 2011. This average contribution amounted to about one-sixth of the public sector’s per capita costs. Public revenues derived from the immigrants were about 30% larger than public costs relating to them. The rest of this section discusses the external validity of this result, i.e. what other EU15 countries have reason to expect based on the Swedish experience. In each country the answer is likely to depend on two factors: language, and the size of the welfare system.
Full study here
number of MPs support a bill that would challenge EU law and extend access restrictions by another five years.
At the same time two countries – Sweden and Finland – never imposed any restrictions in 2007 when Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU. The experience of any of these two countries thus has the potential to provide empirical information on whether the perceived threat of non-restricted migration draining public finances is real or not. The present study has shown that in the Swedish case this perception is actually far from reality.
Instead the average Romanian or Bulgarian immigrant who arrived after January 2007 made a large positive contribution to Swedish public finances in 2011. This average contribution amounted to about one-sixth of the public sector’s per capita costs. Public revenues derived from the immigrants were about 30% larger than public costs relating to them. The rest of this section discusses the external validity of this result, i.e. what other EU15 countries have reason to expect based on the Swedish experience. In each country the answer is likely to depend on two factors: language, and the size of the welfare system.
Full study here
