Spain Will Require Rumanians To Have Work Permits and Jobs

Street protests in Barcelona, June 2011 - copyright Tchacky's, Creative Common

 

In an effort to reduce the pressure on a still-failing job market,  the Spanish government has announced, beginning in the next few days, Rumanians will be required to have work permits and jobs before they are allowed to enter Spain. This because of a massive inflow of Rumanians coming into the country for jobs in industries like the construction field. The pressure on the job market in Spain is now so bad, it’s threatening to cause some industries to collapse completely if something isn’t done soon.

So far, the government says this won’t affect the 800,000 Rumanians already living in Spain, but has been put into place to stop more arriving if they don’t have jobs to come to.

Rumania, along with Bulgaria, is a late entrant into the European Union so Spain can still enforce restrictment of movement on citizens from these two countries until 2014 under EU law. The Spanish government has made sure with this announcement they’re doing it while they can.

While, of course, Rumanians are being discriminated against, you cannot really blame the Spanish government for making this decision. With an unemployment rate of 21.3% and 35% in the age group of 16-29 year olds, it’s vital they get their own citizens back to work before providing jobs for those of other countries.

Of course, there may be some grumbles about this extreme measure but, overall, most Spaniards are probably happy about it. After all, public demonstrations against the government and its employment policies have been getting worse over the last few months. This measure may placate some of the people a little bit.