LONDON, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- Bulgaria has threatened to raise job barriers in response to Britain's plans to introduce immigration restrictions on Bulgarians and Romanians.
Britain's Home Secretary John Reid said Britain will established severe restraints for work permits for immigrant workers from Bulgaria and Romania, the two Balkan states that are scheduled to join the European Union Jan. 1, London's Times said Tuesday.
Under these limits, which do not cover self-employed workers, lower-skilled workers will be permitted to work at first only in food-processing and agricultural zones, while employers in the other sectors will have to prove they need work force before they are allowed to employ Bulgarians and Romanians.
These restrictions are considerably harsher than those limits installed by Britain against a group of post-communist countries, including Poland, that joined the EU in 2004.
Britain, Ireland and Sweden were the only EU countries to let workers from the former communist countries immigrate freely in search for job.
In an angry response, Bulgarian Foreign Ministry's spokesman Dimitar Tsanchev the Sofia government could introduce reciprocal restrictions against Britain or any other EU country that would restrict migrant workers' free movement.
