Belgium to open labor market for Romanians in 2009

Belgian Interior Ministry prepares to lift the restrictions imposed to workers from states that joined the European Union after 2004, EUObserver informs, quoted by Rador. According to the Belgian Interior Minister, Patrick Dewael, the workers from Central and East-European countries that joined the EU in 2004 will be free get jobs in Belgium starting on May 1, while Romanians and Bulgarians will see the labor market opening on January 1, 2009.

The „new” EU citizens who currently want to work in Belgium need a labor permit and have to get through a series of simple formalities, but the fields in which they are allowed to get jobs are restricted to architecture, software, translations, engineering or nursing.

At this moment, only 10 EU states lifted completely the labor market restrictions: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden.