Half a million Poles eager to work abroad after EU enlargement

According to a new study almost half a million Poles found jobs in other European Union member states in the first year after the last bloc's enlargement.

Most of them found work in Germany, Britain, Italy, Netherlands and Ireland, according to the study produced by the European Citizen Action Service, a non-governmental institution chaired by former EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti.

Of the 175,000 workers from the 10 new EU member states registered in Britian between May 2004 and March 2005, almost 100,000 - or 56 percent - were Polish. A similar number of Poles found work in Germany, while about 40,000 moved to Ireland.

By contrast, only several hundred Slovenes moved abroad to find work. Czechs also were reluctant to look for jobs in other EU countries, the study found, with only 5 percent of respondents saying they'd be willing to move abroad if they had a job there.

Meanwhile only three old EU members - Britain, Ireland and Sweden - have opened their borders to job seekers from the new members states. The other old member states have imposed various restrictions and agreements, which may last up to seven years, the AP reports.