Cities, States and Migration Control in Western Europe: Comparing Then and Now

On 1 May 2004 eight eastern European countries, among them Poland and Hungary, became members of the European Union (EU). This meant that labour migrants, provided that they were granted a work permit, could be legally employed in other EU countries. ¹ Employers immediately asked for these permits on a large scale, especially in those sectors of the labour market where native workers were hard to get – mainly in agriculture, construction, cleaning and low-skilled manufacturing. Three years later, most European states lifted the work permit condition and the movement of Poles, Hungarians and others was completely liberalized. At the same time, Rumania and Bulgaria entered the EU and from then on their citizens, like the Poles in 2004, could work legally provided they had a work permit. ² As the decision to liberalize the migration of these groups was taken by states, cities had to go along with the national rules and – in contrast to the early modern period – had few instruments left to regulate their movements.