The reasons for the modest forecast is partly that such a move is associated with costs, that the same rules apply for immigrants and domestic workers in the labour market, and last but not least that mobility is fairly low in the new member states, for cultural and housing reasons among others. A big problem in countries with very high regional unemployment, such as Poland, is that people are not even moving within the country, in spite of vacant jobs and wage differentials of over 50 per cent. Even though six months is undeniably too short a time for assessment, it has been recorded in Swedish media that not a single person from the new member states to date has applied for social welfare or other form of benefit for living in Sweden. Looking for work or applying for benefits in another EU country is both associated with more bureaucracy and rules and is more costly in terms of living and housing than what many people who have never been in that situation know. This is a problem because the labour in the new member states is needed in the old ones. The old countries in the EU have presently a highly unfavourable demographic situation, as previously broad age groups are retiring and the base of active people to support them is being reduced. In Sweden today, each person in the active population supports 0.29 people over 65; by 2030 this ratio is estimated to have risen to 0.42.
The flexibility of their wages and prices makes them therefore unusually well-suited to a currency union like EMU. At the same time, these countries have not shied away from reforms that many leading EU countries have not yet been able to bring about. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Poland have, for example, carried out comprehensive reforms of their pension systems, which now resemble the Swedish model with savings partly invested in funds. In these areas in particular, it is rather the EU that has something to learn from the candidate countries than the other way around. It is as Pope John Paul II said, that now finally can “Europe breathe with both lungs”. The new member states enrich the EU, not just economically but also intellectually, and of course also culturally and in human terms. The enlargement puts the EU in motion; not just the trade and investment, but also the institutions and the ideas. BIS Review 51/2004  5