FREEDOM of movement within the EU remains a distant dream for many citizens of the EU's new member states, a new report has warned.
Xenophobic fears of mass migration led existing EU members to throw up a wide range of ad-hoc 'transitional measures' designed to prevent movement between 'old' and 'new' EU countries, according to a new edition of 'The Unfinished Enlargement' to be published next week by the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS).
MEPs from across the political spectrum will discuss the report at a meeting on freedom of movement and migration within the EU hosted by London Green Party MEP Jean Lambert in Strasbourg next week.
Mrs Lambert, Green MEP for the capital and a member of the European Parliament's Employment and Human Rights Committees, said a jungle of transitional measures and media disinformation has meant job-seekers are being prohibited from travelling freely around the union in search of work.
"Every EU citizen should enjoy the equal right to move freely around the union - and enlargement will remain unfinished until such freedom becomes the reality for all," she said.
Mrs Lambert called on fellow MEPs and the European Commission to condemn - and take action against - those member states whose so-called transitional measures flouted either the spirit or the letter of EU and International Human Rights laws.
Mrs Lambert added: "Xenophobic scaremongering by right-wing Governments and some sections of the media led a number of states to introduce barriers to citizens from the new EU member states, fearing an influx of job-seekers from Eastern Europe.
"This 'influx' hasn't materialised and now Governments must finish enlargement by bringing down the clumsy, hastily erected barriers so all EU citizens can enjoy the benefits of membership."
'The Unfinished Enlargement', originally published by ECAS before ten new members from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean joined the EU in June, has been updated with case studies after ECAS ran a 'freedom of movement' hotline throughout the summer. Copies will be made available at the meeting on Tuesday and by following links on www.jeanlambertmep.org.uk
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