ABSTRACT
Romania's accession to the European Union on 1 January, 2007 was greeted with enthusiasm in Bucharest and trepidation elsewhere in Europe. Fears of mass emigration from Romania, a country whose relatively short history of migration is characterized by large numbers of irregular circular migrants to other EU countries, limited Romania's post-accession right to free movement of people despite its membership of the Schengen zone. Even after they obtained membership in Europe's exclusive club, Romanian citizens are still ‘outsiders’ in the EU, and are likely to remain so until all European countries open their borders to Romanian workers by 2014. 1
