The freedom of movement of workers in the context of an enlarged European Union labor market: Case study on Italy and Romania

1 INTRODUCTION The intention we have in the present paper is not to exhaust the issue chosen to present, but to give some basic ideas about it, seen from a certain chosen perspective. The general realm where our issue is included is represented by the mobility of labor force in the European Union, or better say the freedom of movement of workers. This freedom of movement of workers is itself a part of a more general area, which is the freedom of movement of people in the European Union which at its turn is one of the four fundamental freedoms of the common/internal market. The internal market is the core of the European Union and the four freedoms upon which it is built (along with other policies as for example competition, the approximation of laws, the common customs tariff) constitute the most important original policies that generated the spill- over effect (especially the free movement of goods) and consequently the complexity of many other Community policies. The labor market in general is important, as labor is one of the two basic production factors together with capital. The importance of any labor market is given by the quality of its workers, which is a crucial element in determining the quality of production, and by its capacity of innovation. The idea of having a common EU labor market has a significant impact in experiencing other cultures among EU people and in developing cultural networks and, more precisely in promoting interesting innovations brought by workers’ different national identities. By going to another Member State to work, exercising thus their Community mobility right, the workers have the opportunity to make new connections and understand better what the EU is, how it works, which are the advantages and the rights at the level of the common people. The free movement of workers has a significant social meaning besides other social meanings and was the first kind of free mobility of people, which had an economic character and was for the workers as categories that could support themselves from the financial point of view and thus avoid becoming a burden for the host Member State. Even if Article 18(1) of the EC Treaty states that “every citizen of the Union shall have the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States, subject to the limitations and conditions laid down in this Treaty and by the measures adopted to give it effect” (here limitations meaning secondary legislation) in fact there is the problem regarding the unemployed and the poor people, who are not specified in the secondary legislation.