Romania and Bulgaria: 'If people go to Britain, of course it's to contribute'

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/26/romania-bulgaria-britain-eu-benefit-restrictions

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"Just one thing will really change for us on 1 January," says Horia Vernescu, nursing a cappuccino in an overheated cafe on an otherwise bone-chilling December day in Bucharest's central university district.

"That little line at the bottom of the job ads, you know? The one that says: 'Apply only if you are eligible to work in the UK.' We won't need to worry about it any more. Because, well, we will be. Eligible."

An engaging 23-year-old with a first-class computer sciences degree from Essex University, Vernescu came back to Romania last year to look after an ailing aunt who had put some of her savings towards his studies.

He found a job on a good salary – £600 a month, as much as his parents earn together – with a small but thriving local app developer, moved into a flat with two friends, and was doing fine until the company, through no real fault of its own, lost a couple of key clients.

So now, along with what some in the UK fear will be multitudes of fellow Romanians and Bulgarians, he's coming to Britain. With his skills, in his field – "Software development; any kind really. I'm pretty handy" – he expects no difficulty finding a job paying three times what he made in Bucharest.

How many like Horia Vernescu will jump on a €50 flight to Britain next year, and stay? Haunted by the memory of the half-million Polish workers who arrived in 2004 when it had predicted a mere 13,000, the government declines to hazard even a guess.

Meanwhile, Eurosceptic Tory MPs predict more than 400,000 from the two nations will be living in Britain in a few years. The campaign group MigrationWatch, which lobbies for immigration limits, expects 50,000-70,000 Romanians and Bulgarians to come every year for the first five years. The Migration Matters Trust, a cross-party campaign that challenges the "anti-immigration consensus", believes the figure will peak at 20,000 a year.

So a nervous coalition government has rushed out measures making new arrivals wait longer before they can claim benefits – and, more controversially, is calling for a wider debate on the principle of free movement within the European Union and perhaps even an EU migration cap.

Talking to students, professionals, labourers and government officials in Bucharest and Sofia, things look less dramatic. Concrete predictions are a fool's game, but very few here foresee a flood of emigrants – or believe benefit scroungers exist in statistically meaningful numbers.

Pretty much everyone, on the other hand, who reads a newspaper or watches TV says they feel shocked by their portrayal. Elena Ghita, seeking to move to Britain – or the US, Canada or Australia – as an operations manager ideally for a start-up, says: "It makes you angry. And ashamed, for the first time, to be Romanian. We know our flaws. But when you're attacked so – dishonestly ... Is this really how you see us? Beggars and thieves?"

People point out here that Bulgarians and Romanians have been able to travel visa-free to Britain since their countries joined the EU in 2007 – and that the temporary restrictions stopped very few from working. According to UK labour market statistics, 121,500 Romanians and Bulgarians were working in Britain last month: as part of fixed quotas in food-processing and agriculture, by simply registering as self-employed or – for the more highly skilled – on permits applied for by an employer.

"The people who really wanted to leave have mostly left by now," says Raluca Apostol, 25, who did a one-year masters in marketing at Portsmouth in 2011 and will go back next year if she finds a better job than the one she has in Bucharest. "It's not a question any more of 'Hey, I can go now, so I think I will.' Most already went. And it was easy to stay."

It's a view you hear repeated often. In Sofia, a young web developer called Slavo Ingilizov has already found his London job, starting in mid-January. He's moving because, while he has a very good post with a Bulgarian IT company consistently voted the country's best employer, he wanted to be somewhere smaller, sharper, where what he says counts for more.

Ingilizov will double his pay but knows his outgoings will be three or even four times higher: "This is about the job, not the disposable cash. I won't be much better off." He, too, sees no imminent exodus – despite an average monthly wage in Bulgaria of only €400 (£330). "It won't be massive," Ingilizov says. "This isn't the border opening, it's a simplified procedure for working. Some people live so poorly here it was a no-brainer to go; no restrictions would stop them, and they went. But I haven't heard a single person say: 'God, I'm just waiting for 1 January.'"

Mila Korsakova, who aims to study product or graphic design in London and work there afterwards, agrees: "Moving is still a big deal. You have to be desperate or highly motivated, and if you were one of those, why would you have waited?"

The two countries do expect a rise in the number of their citizens registered in Britain but they believe much of that increase will come from people "regularising" their situations: those nominally illegally or self-employed builders, drivers, receptionists, and waiters who had the working practices of employees but none of the protections.

But an invasion? They don't see it happening here. In Romania, journalists such as Mihai Radu recall news items about busloads of workers leaving for Birmingham building sites, Norfolk food-processing factories or vegetable farms in Lincolnshire. "But that was 2007," he says, "and there are no more buses leaving now than did back then."

Ion Ciornihac aims to be on one of them, though, if his mate Cornel Mihai, flush with a bit of cash after working in building supplies in New York, succeeds in getting a small agency off the ground to bring painters, plasterers and tilers to work on UK building sites.

But Ciornihac would not leave on his own, without the security of an agency and a sure job. "I don't even know how to ask for a loaf of bread in English," he says. Earning €22 a day on building sites around Bucharest, Ciornihac has, unsurprisingly, already done similar such stints abroad: a year in Spain a while back, two three-month contracts in Germany."I'll go as long as the money is guaranteed," he says; he's currently insulating a block of flats but hasn't been paid for a month – the council hasn't paid the contractor, the contractor isn't paying the workers. "I'm not living, I'm surviving," he says. Between them, Ciornihac and his wife, a cook, are lucky to clear 700 euros a month.

Would he settle abroad? "No," he says. "I'm Romanian, and I want to live in Romania. My wife won't leave, anyway, so it will be just me, just for the money. There'll be others like me, but no more than before, and we'll come back. We go there to work, if there are jobs for us to do."

In some more highly qualified sectors, the numbers moving have already peaked. Laurentiu Marc, who runs the Bucharest office of a medical recruitment agency, says he was once finding British jobs for 1,000 Romanian doctors, dentists and pharmacists a year. In 2011, the General Medical Council registered 450 Romanian doctors to work in Britain, the third highest total after India and Pakistan.

A junior doctor in Romania can expect to earn €300 a month, against €2,500 in Britain. "But in 2012 the number of Romanian doctors coming to us hit a plateau," says Marc, "and there's been no upswing ahead of January 1. Those who wanted to leave have already left."

Officials here also note that unlike in 2004, eight other EU countries besides Britain – including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands – will be lifting controls on Romanian and Bulgarian workers next month, so Britain's pull factor should be weaker. Brândua Predescu at the foreign ministry points out that Romanians actually started emigrating with the fall of the Ceausescu regime, and the trend continued through the country's steady progression towards full EU membership.

"Even in 2007, there was not what you would call an exodus," Predescu says. "Many Romanian families have found jobs abroad since 1990." Large Romanian communities – 1 million and 1.5 million strong and into their second generation – have existed for 20 years in Spain and Italy, where Latin languages and cultures made integration easier. Perhaps half a million are in Germany.

So how many more are likely to leave now? Especially, Predescu notes that "the Romanian economy continued to grow throughout the crisis; levels of general wealth are rising; Romania is attracting more and more foreign investors … The temptation to leave en masse is falling. We do not really understand these British fears."

Nor do people here understand the notion that any more than a tiny number of people might move to a foreign country simply to claim benefits. "It's a crazy idea," says Nasko Stoikov, a trainee auditor in Sofia. "Why would anyone want to do that? I've never even thought about benefits. If people go, of course it's to work, to contribute."

According to the Romanian foreign ministry, more than 70% of Romanians in Britain are aged between 18 and 35, while child benefit claims by Romanian families in Britain amount to 0.8% of the total for families from the European Economic Area.

There is broad acceptance – even support – for Britain's last-minute moves to tighten benefit rules. "I don't think any reasonable person would object to a three-month qualification period, or longer," says Valentina Ivan, who spent a year in Edinburgh. "If people really are going to the UK to live on benefits, it's because they know they can get away with it. So reform your system: insist everyone must contribute, for several months, before they can claim."

Some members of Romania's Roma community may, people claim, be a cause for concern. Like many here, Marius Todea and Cristina Matache from Bucharest's Saint Sava high school, who hope to study at British universities next year, are eager to draw a distinction. "It's partly our fault; we've failed to integrate the Roma community," says Todea. "I'm not prejudiced; they have their way of life. Some do go abroad and do unpleasant things. But people abroad should not confuse Roma and Romanians."

As long as national laws are obeyed, the fundamental European right to freedom of movement must be upheld. That is what counts here – and as Britain grapples with its Eurosceptic demons, Romanians and Bulgarians fear freedom is threatened. "Verify, check, clamp down, tighten up, plug the holes in your systems all you like," says Andrei, 31, in Bucharest, who asked not to be further identified. "But please, don't touch freedom of movement within the EU.

"This was our parents' dream; even 25 years ago you couldn't imagine it. My dad has a friend who jumped in the Danube, to get to France. So don't stop working people moving. Don't stop them filling vacancies that need to be filled."

Cutting down on free movement, says Radu Tatucu, who spent 11 years in the US, would "go against the whole spirit of the EU. Bringing down the barriers was the whole point … I'd like to believe they've been lowered for good. I'd hate some politician to try to raise them again for the sake of 2% more votes."

The Romanians and Bulgarians arriving in Britain next year will include students like Todea, labourers like Ciornihac, high-skilled, hi-tech specialists like Vernescu and Ingilzov. But they will also, most likely, include quite a few like Iuliana Stefan, a 32-year-old civil engineer.

After a fruitful few years in Bucharest during the mid-2000s boom, Stefan has a job but has not been paid since August. She is not sure of finding work in Britain in her chosen profession; her qualifications may not transfer.

So she'll settle for office management, and failing that, for almost anything: her sister, back in Romania to have her baby after a bad experience with the NHS, paid a recruiter back in 2007, went on a course, and got one of those "self-employed" jobs in a restaurant in Yorkshire.

But whatever Stefan ends up doing, "I won't have to pay, and I won't need a permit. So it will just be that little bit easier. And I think most of us going now, next year, will be like this: young, highly qualified, wanting to work hard, do well … But perhaps that's harder for Britain to deal with than a flood of benefit scroungers."

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