EU enlargement and migration:

EU enlargement and migration: Assessing the macroeconomic impacts

Ray Barrell*, John FitzGerald** and Rebecca Riley* *National Institute of Economic and Social Research, London **Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin

This paper considers the macroeconomic effects of the migration that followed the enlargement of the EU in May 2004. At that time the EU was expanded to include 10 New Member States (NMS) predominantly from Central and Eastern Europe. In the wake of accession the number of workers migrating to the EU-15 from the poorest of the NMS increased significantly. In part the result of the liberal immigration policies adopted, and restrictive policies adopted elsewhere, Ireland and the UK have become popular destination countries for NMS workers. Here we illustrate the potential macroeconomic consequences of these migration flows across Europe, highlighting the impacts in both the receiving and sending countries.


Migration, Co-ordination Failures and EU Enlargement
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Foreign labour in the United Kingdom: current patterns and trends
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Labour Mobility in the Enlarged European Union: International Migration from the EU8 countries
it is possible to speculate that Polish emigrants substituted other destination countries for Germany with the new possibilities that arose upon accession to the EU (Fihel, 2006).

Abstract
The present paper consists of an extensive description of recent migration in the 8 new European Union member countries which accessed the EU on May 1st, 2004. Since 1989 all of these countries experience an unique shift from socialist to market economy. The paper attempts to capture an interplay or correlation of pre- and post-enlargement developments with the phenomena of political and socio-economic transition on migration from and into this region.