It's less than a year since the European Union's big bang when it expanded its membership to 25 countries. We ask the newcomers what they think of life in the club. What are the restrictions they face, in particular on setting themselves up in parts of 'Old Europe'?

Europe's Big Bang enlargement is proving something of a damp squib

When 10 new countries joined the EU from the central and east of Europe the media trumpeted the true end to the Cold War. Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder joined hands with his Polish counterpart on the bridge between their two countries - a gesture symbolising the burial of years of conflict between neighbours in this continent.

The 'new' EU countries organised everything from fireworks and music to dancing and tree-planting as they looked forward to the era ahead.

Almost 12 months on, though, for many the so-called Big Bang is proving something of a damp squib since one of the EU's founding principals, the freedom to look for work anywhere within its member states, is not a reality.

All the 'old' EU countries, bar the UK, Sweden and Ireland, are retaining working restrictions on citizens from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – on all the new members apart from Cyprus and Malta – for at least the next two years.

Poor relations

"Nothing has really changed since 1 May," complains Andrea Kiss, a 28-year-old Hungarian who has been waiting five months for a work permit to work as a secretary in Marbella in Spain. "We're the poor relations of the EU, without the same rights."

Kiss is typical of the kind of new EU worker that the Commission predicted would look for work in the existing EU countries – young, educated and a woman.

A qualified translator, Kiss found a company that was keen to take her on because she speaks Spanish, Italian, English and Hungarian. However, in order to hire her, the company must obtain a certificate from the Job Office, stating that no Spaniard or 'old' EU worker who is unemployed could do the job.

"I think in the end, I'll get the work permit, but the company has had to describe the profile very carefully, saying it's necessary that the person speaks Hungarian and Italian," says Kiss.

Polish Malgorzata Bartyzel believes she risked losing a European Commission-funded Marie Curie research fellowship, to work for Philips in Eindhoven, through similar work permit rules in the Netherlands.

"I was expecting to get the documents on 1 May and it took two months longer, three months in all," she says. "It was very frustrating and ridiculous. Philips had to wait for confirmation that no Dutch person could do the job. In this case, only a foreigner was eligible for my salary."

Despite the continued restrictions, though, 25-year-old Bartyzel is nevertheless conscious that Poland's accession to the EU has already given her opportunities previous generations in her country did not enjoy.

Programmes like the Marie Curie Research Fellowship are designed to encourage the sharing of science and research between different countries, and the European Commission is particularly keen to ensure the potential of women from the Eastern and Central European countries is properly developed.

Last year, a report chaired by the President of the Estonian Parliament Professor Ene Ergma concluded that women scientists in ex-communist countries had been highly educated but were often employed in areas where R&D expenditure was lowest and usually failed to reach the summit of their professions.

New opportunities

Bartyzel looks well on her way to the summit of her career in material sciences – she was selected by Philips to research polymers after finishing a double Masters in Muenster in Germany through the EU scheme Socrates.

She researched her thesis in Munich at the electrical company Osram GmbH. "I chose Germany because it's advanced technologically," she says. "In Poland, there isn't as much funding in big industry.

"Afterwards, I would have liked to have looked for a full-time post in Germany but getting a work permit is really complicated, so I didn't even want to try."

Germany, which along with its ally France led the arguments for keeping borders closed to workers, has already said it wants the existing working restrictions to continue for the full seven years EU rules allow. It remains to be seen whether other EU countries will scrap them after May 2006.

European Commission spokesperson Katharina von Schnurbein says there haven't been masses of new EU workers migrating. "Even in those countries which didn't opt for transition arrangements, the fears of distortion of the labour market haven't come true," she says.

"I can understand the fears of these countries," says Joanna Bilewicz, an HR specialist from Krakow working in Brussels. "With problems of unemployment at home they feel they can't take on all the people who want to go to those countries, but the UK and Ireland haven't regretted opening their borders and I hope these countries will follow their lead."

An international welcome

Bilewicz, who came to Belgium with her Hungarian scientist husband five years ago, set up the Polish Expat Network last April in preparation for the influx of Poles arriving to work at the EU's institutions.

The network has quickly grown from a handful of people to 150 members. "We have a mix of people – some who arrived in the 70s or 80s to work in universities or orchestras and many who arrived five years ago in the preparations for Poland joining the EU or on 1 May," she says. "The newcomers are translators or people working at all levels of the institutions."

These new Europeans are being easily welcomed into Brussels' international community. "We gave a concert of Polish music in December and 400 people came. There's a huge interest in our culture here which is why we've decided to show more of it."

Away from the European institutions, though, job-hunting for the new EU workers, many of which are spouses or partners of those with Parliament or Commission contracts, is still difficult.

"1 May created huge hopes which have been disappointed in many cases because of the need for a work permit," says Bilewicz. "Unless you have very special skills it's still difficult to find a job."

The road to change

Bilewicz is positive about the future; however, sensing employers are becoming increasingly receptive to hiring new EU workers, partly through the lead of the EU.

"At the moment it's the institutions that are creating all the jobs, but, I think in one year the old EU countries will get used to us," she says. "They'll see how qualified many of our workers are and that we have skills that are needed. The EU needs us just as we need the EU."

Hungarian Barbara Csányi, a 28-year-old paediatrician working in Malaga, stresses that even if working restrictions are rapidly removed, finding a job in another European country is not an easy matter, since there is the obvious language barrier to surmount along with other hurdles.

She had to wait almost two years for her medical qualifications from Budapest to be recognised in Spain, before sitting a public exam in Spanish, where she came 1,533rd out of 9,000 Spanish doctors to secure a job in a hospital.

On the map

For Csányi, the greatest benefit that EU enlargement has brought is a greater awareness in western Europe about eastern and central European countries, a view shared by many of the new Europeans. They're hoping they can dispel some of the prevalent stereotypes about their nationalities.

"I sometimes think that western Europeans' awareness of Europe ends on the eastern side of the Oder in Germany, so I like to explain about my country," says Bartyzel. "Some of the Dutch think Poland's a place where you just send second-hand clothes."

"Some of the Spanish think we're all gipsies and that we're all poor," adds Csányi. "People are open-minded but they simply have no idea of what our countries are like. What I liked when we joined the EU was that there were programmes about our customs and they saw, for instance, that we don't die from the cold.

"I always laugh when people say 'Now you're in Europe because we've always been in Europe, but western Europeans think of the Union as Europe. When the weather used to come on, there would always be a map saying: 'Europe' and it would miss off central and eastern Europe completely. Now we've entered Europe, we're on that map."

March 2005

[Copyright Expatica 2005]

Subjects: Expats in Europe, new EU members, jobs abroad, living in Europe