Is EU membership good news for Polish illegal workers in Brussels?

"If you have no work, you have no life," says sixty year-old Wieslawa who has been working as a cleaning lady in Brussels for several years now. No, she hasn't got a permit but with unemployment running high in her home town of Biala Podlaska, she says she has no choice:

Photo: European Commission

"Our Podlaski region has very poor money. Many people have been laid off as a large number of factories have been closed. The only way out for people like me, people of my age, is to look for a job abroad even if this is illegal. This is a chance for a decent life."

A conversation I had in one of the pubs in Brussels convinced me that its average citizens have nothing against Poles coming there to work:

Woman in pub: "A lot of Poles who come here to work come from Bialystok or the Podlaski regions and you have vans going to and fro every day."

There's an explanation for that; a simple one, I understand?

Woman in pub: "Well, I guess it's very simple...for economic reasons. Since those parts of Poland are highly underdeveloped. There are job opportunities, I believe, but those people simply earn more here."

Would you mostly see and meet these people?

Woman in pub: "Everywhere. They are everywhere. Everyday I take a bus and there are Poles there. There are Poles living in the same building with me."

How are they received?

Man in pub: "Well, I think they are rather well received. The point is that most of them work illegally. They are cheap. Most of the women work as a 'femme de menage', a cleaning lady..."

Man's friend in pub: "...and when the men come to do construction work, they are cheap and very skilled workers and so people appreciate their work. For example, ten years ago my mother had Polish cleaning ladies who were from the Bialystok region and she was so pleased with them."

As of May 1, Poles can look for jobs legally in Britain, Ireland, and Sweden, and hundreds have already set off for those countries. The coming months will see if their labour markets are flooded by Polish workers. The experience of the three countries will certainly be a guideline for other EU members who have opted for restrictions in the free movement of labour.