Free movement of workers within the EU : Western solidarity or dystopian challenges for Central-East European workers?

Konjević, Tena (author)

The article analyses the application of the principle of free movement of workers within the European Union, focusing on the challenges arising from implementing transitional arrangements that restricted this freedom for the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries’ nationals because of the concerns about mass migration and its potential impact on the labour market. The article aims to provide an overview of these reasons, scrutinising their proportionality and justification. Additionally, it examines the impacts of those transitional provisions, which have resulted in unequal EU citizenship rights and have stimulated the CEE workers’ predominant occupation in low-wage sectors of the labour market. Furthermore, the emergence of prejudice based on cultural differences towards the CEE workers has influenced Western EU employers’ preference for "good workers" from the CEE countries, often attributed to the strong work ethic and willingness of the CEE workers to fill workforce gaps in less desirable jobs. To interrogate this matter and to determine whether the preference of the CEE workers arises from solidarity or some other interest, empirical research was conducted on a sample of Croatian nationals working in Germany. By its qualitative and quantitative approach, the article contributes to understanding the implications and dynamics surrounding the freedom of movement for workers within the EU, with a specific focus on the position of the CEE countries’ nationals. It explores the motives behind the implementation of transitional arrangements, examines their consequences for the EU labour market, and investigates the factors influencing Western employers’ preferences toward the CEE mobile workers.

• Language: English
• Keywords: free movement of workers, transitional arrangements, CEE workers, EU labour market
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: PF - Faculty of Law
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: Str. 119-144
• Numbering: Letn. 83
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-168374
• UDC: 349.2:339.13.012.42:061.1EU
• ISSN on article: 1854-3839
• DOI: 10.51940/2023.1.119-144
• COBISS.SI-ID: 183610627
• Publication date in RUL: 10.04.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Zbornik znanstvenih razprav
• Shortened title: Zb. znan. razpr.
• Publisher: Pravna fakulteta
• ISSN: 1854-3839
• COBISS.SI-ID: 223437312

Licences

• License: CC BY-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
• Description: Under the NoDerivatives Creative Commons license one can take a work released under this license and re-distribute it, but it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Prost pretok delavcev znotraj EU : zahodna solidarnost ali distopični izzivi za delavce iz Srednje in Vzhodne Evrope?
• Keywords: prost pretok delavcev, delovno pravo, evropski trg dela, Evropska unija

Projects

• Funder: Faculty of Law Osijek Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek
• Project number: IP-PRAVOS-3
• Name: Labour law and the challenges of the 21st century; transformation, humanization, discrimination and equality