Back to work permits for Romanians

The EU "accepts Spain’s limits on the access of Romanians” to the Spanish labour market, headlines the daily La Razón, announcing that the European Commission “will allow Spain as of tomorrow [August 11] to re-institute work permits for citizens of Romania,” which were abolished in 2009. From now on they will be mandatory for new residents.

The conservative daily writesthat “Brussels and the [Spanish] government agree on the timing of the decision to restore” what the Commission calls a “normal labour market” in Spain. The Romanian community in Spain has more than 860,000 residents, attracted in recent years by Spain’s economic boom. Today, with an unemployment rate of 21 percent – 30 percent among Romanian workers – Madrid needed a free hand from the EU “to cut back on one of the fundamental freedoms of the European treaties: freedom of movement”, and, what’s more, “during the summer, which sees thousands of temporary Romanian workers come to the Spanish countryside.” The restrictions will not apply to Romanian workers already resident in Spain, even if they are unemployed, La Razón concludes.