Germany wants to protect its labor market for seven years from competition from workers of new states as they enter the European Union, a German newspaper reported Monday.
The Berliner Zeitung said that the foreign, economic and labor ministries had conducted difficult negotiations for more than a year before agreeing to set an initial job market restriction of seven years, which could be shortened or extended based on the state of German unemployment.
The proposed policy is a reaction to fears that workers from eastern and central European countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, which are among the first expected to join the EU as it enlarges, would flood the German job market.
The German jobless rate is currently at 8.9 percent, with unemployment sharply higher in the former communist east of the country at 16.3 percent.
The newspaper, citing government sources, said the proposal was based on an eight-year limit placed on Portugese and Spanish workers before they could work in the EU when those countries joined the bloc in the 1980s.
The government declined to comment on the report -- BERLIN (AFP)
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