Finland is opening to the labour of new EU countries

The Ministry of Labour and the labour market organizations recommend that the transition period for labour will not be continued. The matter still requires the decision of the Government and Parliament.

Tarja Filatov, The Minister of Labour, is satisfied with the solution.

The tripartite working group of the Ministry of Labour proposed on Friday 10 February unanimously that Finland will not, after 1 May 2006, continue the transition period applied to new EU citizens. The final decision regarding transition periods will be made by Parliament to which the Government will submit a report on the issue.

In the opinion of the section, it will not be necessary to restrict the admittance of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens to the Finnish labour market along with the EU enlargement on 1 January 2007.

The Minister of Labour, Tarja Filatov, is satisfied with the solution reached. - Finland never introduced any transition period for services, but uses a transition period for labour mobility. This has led to a situation where work has enveloped itself in services. The workers come from the new EU countries as hired workers or independent practitioners. This will lead to a situation where the terms of employment have been difficult to supervise. It would be easier to supervise the labour market, where people have a direct employment relationship with the Finnish employer.

- Abandoning transition periods will not fully remove the market of hired labour. Yet, it will prevent the growing of the problem, Filatov believes.

In Filatov’s opinion, one has to advance in questions related to the supervision of foreign labour. With regard to the supervision, one has to know who in Finland is working, and for this reason registration is important. – By the present method we have no accurate information on how many foreign workers in Finland are working. Supervision is important for the equality of the workers and for the fair competition of enterprises, says Filatov.

Press release on the web site of Ministry of Labour.(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window)