Czechs and Hungarians ask for fair treatment by EU

Meeting in Prague the Czech and Hungarian foreign ministers have said they don't want their countries to be second-class citizens in the European Union. This comes in the wake of news that the European Commission will back a German proposal to impose a transition period of up to seven years on the free movement of workers from newcomer states to current EU members. According to Reuters, an EU diplomatic source has confirmed that the Commission, the EU's executive arm, would propose a general transition period of five years, which any member state could unilaterally prolong by another two years. At a press conference in Prague, the Czech foreign minister Jan Kavan and his Hungarian counterpart Janos Martonyi stressed that these restrictions would contradict the EU's single market and argued that the EU should give newcomers all the advantages of membership, imposing restrictions only in the event of problems.