ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, from 2014 people from Bulgaria and Romania will gain the unrestricted right to live and work in the United Kingdom. That’s when temporary curbs on immigration will be lifted and it has been the subject of widespread debate this week. Well we commissioned a YouGov poll this week that found that 65% of people are worried about those changes. In a moment I’ll speak to Romania’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom but first I’m joined from Brussels by Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister, Nikolai Mladenov. A very good morning to you Mr Mladenov, come 2014 do you expect the UK to fully meet its EU obligations when it comes to any nationals from Bulgaria that wish to come here.

NIKOLAI MLADENOV: Yes, I fully expect the UK to meet its obligations under the European Treaty because that is a commitment that member states have made to lift all, the last elements of limitations on the workers from Bulgaria and Romania on January 1st 2014. However I do not expect the UK to be overwhelmed by a wave of our nationals coming over there seeking employment for a number of reasons and I think that when we’ve looked at the experience in other countries over the last seven years, this has not happened and there is no reason to believe this will happen in the UK as of January of next year.

DM: Can you put any numbers on your expectations and fill out the reasons why you think it won’t be that many?

NM: Let me first give you an example. Ireland lifted requirements in the summer of last year and since lifting those requirements only about 300 odd people have registered there to work. Secondly because if people want to come they have to meet the requirements of UK legislation and the legislation of all member states so we would be looking at actually people going there to work legally. Of course if there are fears in the UK that your social security systems might be abused by illegal immigrants you have the full right within the law to make sure that that does not happen but we have not seen since Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union mass waves of Bulgarians moving across Europe and seeking illegal rights or illegal immigration to other countries. We had some issues in the first days after accession but in a number of cases we acted very swiftly and they were addressed so there were no lasting concerns and thirdly perhaps because the UK would not be the primary country of choice for many people to go and work. Our economy is mostly connected to the German economy, we have a large number of companies working in places like Spain and Italy where we have long standing traditions, where actually the labour market had opened for Bulgarians quite some time ago. So I really don’t believe there is a need to have these fearful debates that are happening in your country, on the contrary, I think people in the United Kingdom given their history must understand that immigration has always been beneficial for your economy, just as Britain’s membership in the European Union has been beneficial not just for the jobs creation but for the increasing of the level of prosperity in your country.

DM: But as you know, the debate about continuing restrictions or different restrictions being put on from 2014 are very live in this country. Let me join this with the Prime Minister, David Cameron’s, speech about the EU a couple of weeks ago when he was talking about renegotiating some of the terms of Britain’s membership of the European Union. Could an issue like this affect Bulgaria’s attitude to the United Kingdom when it comes down to those negotiations and as an EU member you might feel less sympathetic to the UK’s case?

NM: Well we have a lot of very good areas of co-operation with the UK, particularly in the area of security, which is quite important for both countries. However, if this debate continues the way it’s heading, it will definitely dampen the enthusiasm for co-operation between the two countries because we are also facing an election in the summer of this year and people are becoming very anxious when they see the words, the accusations, the articles that appear in the British media labelling Bulgarians or Romanians for that matter as people who would come from somewhere beyond who would want to come and abuse your system. There are many people who feel this is a very unfair representation so I can imagine that if this debate continues in this direction it would definitely have a negative effect on our relationship. However I firmly believe, and I can say this quite open, I firmly believe that the United Kingdom’s place is well in Europe. It is not to have some sort of a pick and choose relationship with Europe but it is firmly to be engaged with the rest of the member states of the European Union because it has been extremely beneficial for you and it has been extremely beneficial for all of us in Europe and the single most important part of that benefit has been the single market. The single market has allowed companies from the two ends of Europe, from Bulgaria and the UK, from Finland to Spain, to benefit from the largest trading space in the world and I think that benefit should not be lost on people as they move into your more engaging debate on the relationship with the rest of the European Union. I think everyone needs to understand that it is for the best benefit of all us that we stick together in Europe on the basis of the treaty commitments that we have and we collectively see how to address the effects of the economic crisis that we’re all suffering, how to bring growth back into our economies without damaging our finances.

DM: Okay, Mr Mladenov, must end it there, thank you very much indeed for your views. Well let’s talk now to Romania’s Ambassador to the UK, Ion Jinga, a very good morning to you. I saw you nodding along there with a lot of what you heard there from the Foreign Minister, just first of all, he touched up on it and you’re living in this country, what do you make of, would you call them scare stories that are appearing in the press and on the television screens about nationals from your country and from Bulgaria coming here in 2014? What do you feel when you read some of those articles?

DR ION JINGA: Honestly I believe this is a false problem and I’ll tell you why, for many reasons. First because Romanians immigration pattern is not to the UK, but to Spain, Italy and France for instance because of the language proximity, Romanian being a Latin language. We have one million Romanians already living and working in Spain, one million in Italy and probably half a million in France. According to the last figures released last week by the British Office for National Statistics, there are only 68,000 Romanians that have Romanian as a first language in Britain so Romanians, to put it in a different way, the Romanian language is the first language for 68,000 people in Britain. Which means that in seven years since our accession to the European Union only about 70, 80,000 people came to Britain.

DM: Well there have been restrictions in place but what happened … just let me push it on because time is limited here but if we come to 2014 and the UK government is unilaterally or however putting some restrictions on let’s say access to benefits or health services or something like that for Romanian nationals, what does Romania do about it? Does it say look, this is the single market, we have access to your country just the same way as UK nationals have access to ours?

IJ: That was my point I wanted to raise to you, because those Romanians who wanted to come to Britain, they already did it. There are some restrictions for some areas of activity but no visa requirements so those who wanted to come, they did it. It is always a possibility to find a job even if it is under restrictions and that solution is to declare yourself as self-employed and many Romanians did so. That’s why for instance in construction sector there are many Romanians here and that’s why your Olympic Village was built last year, by Romanians.

DM: We understand that contribution and are probably thankful for it but what about benefits? I mean the benefit system is more generous than that in Romania, won’t people come here and just avail themselves of that?

IJ: The Romanian community in Britain has in proportion of 7% on average between the ages of 18 and 35, they are an active community. According to a study last year by the British government called Factors for Romanians and Bulgarians in the UK there are only 4.4% of Romanians unemployed here whereas the active people are in a proportion of 85%. That is the highest proportion of active people from all foreigners in the UK so Romanians did not come here to ask for social benefits but work and they are a young community, they do not need healthcare, they do not need social assistance. I believe we have also an important contribution to the British healthcare system because more than 2000 of our Romanian doctors came to work here, they have been recruited here and more than 2000 Romanian nurses, this is a problem to us and we’d like to bring them back because we also need the in Romania.

DM: That’s an important point. Mr Ambassador, thank you very much indeed, Ion Jinga there.