TALLINN - In the two years that Estonia has been a member of the European Union, some 10,000 to 11,000 citizens have left to work in other EU countires, Social Affairs Minister Jaak Aab said.
Since Estonians mostly work abroad for shorter periods, he explained, it is not known how many of them have returned or left again - working in a foreign country for a second or third "tour." The minister said that outbound labor migration had substantially reduced unemployment and triggered a labor deficit in certain industries. "There are certain sectors in Estonia where there's a shortage of labor. We can say that this free movement has helped call back those Estonians who have been away from the market for a long time," Aab said.
Although the government is now being forced to undertake efforts to tackle the labor shortage, the country remains an advocate of EU migration, the minister added. Sweden, Britain and Ireland were the only EU members to immediately apply EU regulations on the free movement of labor to workers from the eastern and central European states that joined the EU on May 1, 2004. Several other older EU members have spoken of scrapping or reviewing the restrictions. Spain and Portugal have said that they are not going to extend the restrictions, while Austria, Germany and France, which earlier spoke of maximum restrictions, have said they would conduct an annual review of the situation.
Aab said he believes France would be the first of that group to open its borders to workers from the new EU member states.
Restrictions on the movement of labor left in force by Finland will end in May this year. The social affairs minister said it was unlikely that Estonians would start emigrating to Finland for work in large masses after that.
Meanwhile, Finland's interior minister said border controls on the Finnish-Estonian border would disappear in the fall of 2007, provided that all preparations for Estonia's membership of the Schengen visa-free travel zone are carried out as planned.
Kari Rajamaki heads the EU minister's commission that will evaluate new members' readiness for accession to the Schengen Treaty in December, Finland's STT news agency reported.
The Baltic states intend to join the zone together in 2007. The three countries have pegged Oct. 28 next year as a possible date. A progress report on Estonia is to be made in December. The final decision about the evaluation results and abolition of checks on internal borders is to be made by fall 2007. Of older EU members, all but Britain and Ireland are members of the Schengen Treaty
