Laszlo Andor - EU Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner HARDtalk

month. Now it is time for HARDtalk.

Welcome to HARDtalk. Is the stability and unity of the European

Union threatened by internal migration? Over the past decade,

millions of people from the countries of Eastern Europe has

taken advantage of the EU's integrated economic space to live

and work in the union's richer countries. But now there are signs

of a political backlash, not least in Britain, my guest is the EU

commissioner for employment and social affairs, Laszlo Andor. Has

your's freedom of movement gone too far? `` has Europe's.

Commissioner Laszlo Andor, welcome to HARDtalk. Would you accept the

proposition that as Europe has grappled with economic crises, the

basic principle of freedom of movement, established for many years

inside the European Union, has caused real tension, social and

economic tension? I believe it is the crisis itself that is causing

the tension. The possibility to develop a genuine European Labour

market is an opportunity which we should use. It is potentially a

win`win game for individuals, companies, sending countries,

receiving countries, and we should anticipate more migration in the

European Union, more workers looking for a job in another country, and

this is indeed an opportunity rather than a threat. Why do think that

David Cameron, in the Financial Times, said quite plainly, that

things have gone wrong inside the single market, and in particular he

on what has gone wrong with this freedom of movement, freedom of work

principle. Some countries, including the UK, experienced something which

was not expected, but it is very important to be measured and draw

conclusions in a proportionate way. What was expected is a certain

number of Polish and other workers would come after the accession of

these countries in 2004, and it is true that much larger numbers came

then originally expected. People talk about tens of thousands, it

turned out to be hundreds of thousands. More than a million in

the UK. This is the difference. It is important to see what the result

is. The result of this large migration is that the British GDP

increased more than was expect dead, the migrant workers contributed to

economic growth, and they even became net contributors to the

public budget. You may look at it as an economist, many people look at it

in terms of real life, they see the pressures on health, on schools, and

other social services. They see that some of these migrants are living on

benefits and they wonder why they should pay taxes for people outside

the UK to live on benefits. That is why I come to this point about

social, economic, political tensions. Not just in the UK. One

can look at Austria, the Netherlands, runs, Germany. That is

why I am saying we have to be proportionate. We have to say there

are red number of cities, regions, districts, where they may be local

tensions. It is not might be. There are. I want to be clear, you do

accent that in certain countries, there are real problems. There is

tension, indeed. Not only in this country. We know, we speak with the

mayors, because they are users of the European funds. The structure of

funds, the social fund and the regional fund, are allocated to

these regions, in order to address tensions if they may arise. This is

not a kind of problem. There is not a magnitude of the problem that

cannot be handled by the available instruments. But they are not being

handled. Why should I believe that these can be handled, where in

recent years, they have not been handled, and that is why when you

look at opinion polls, the level of disaffection with the migration

issue is rising. If we get to specifics, the fact that in the case

of Romania and Bulgaria, that all restrictions will be removed from

their ability to travel and work across the European Union at the end

of this year, 82% of British people in the latest polls say no. The

restrictions should remain. I think people should not see individual

cases, anecdotal evidence, or individual experience, which they

see in their own neighbourhood, but the big picture. The big picture is

number one, there are many important benefits, economic benefits,

financial benefits on the side of the receiving country, including on

the side of people who sometimes complain. If it is about healthcare,

it is important to see that this migrant population uses the

healthcare of the receiving countries is much less scale than

the local population. Even if it is the case, some of the cost can be

recovered from the sending country, because this is provided by the EU

laws, and the healthcare system can only function because there are many

foreign debt and nurses helping it to function. You are not an elected

politician, are you? It may be easier for you to talk about the big

picture, and individuals, how they may feel disaffected in their own

lives, it is easy to say if you are not standing for an election. The

commission is elected by the European Parliament and approved by

the government. But you do not have to go to the people. The politicians

have to go to the people and explain to the people why so many hundreds

of thousands of immigrants from across the European Union have come

into this country and wire, a significant number of them, are

living on benefits, which are provided by the taxpayers of the UK.

If you are a politician, that is a difficult thing to defend. These

politicians should be responsible and explain to the electorate, those

people who arrived from the new member states of the EU, use the

benefits to a much lesser extent than their local population, and

they contribute a lot more. If you are so confident when it comes to

healthcare... Bearer many independent studies that prove this.

If you are so confident that these incoming people from other parts,

the poorer parts of the European Union are not really a burden, then

what is your problem with Prime Minister Cameron's long list of

modifications that he wants to make to the way the system works. Just to

go through a couple. He wants a bar of migrants claiming out of work

benefits for the first three months after they arrive, he wants welfare

payments stopped after six months unless the claimant is deemed to

have a genuine chance of getting a job. In essence, he is trying to be

much tougher and send a signal that if you come to the UK, you will not,

absolutely not, be able to make a life for yourself on welfare and

benefits. What is wrong with that? What is wrong at this stage is to

issue that the migrant workers from new member states are free riders.

There is this phrase, benefit tourism. Their research a phrase,

but there is no evidence. We have been asking the British Government

for years to provide figures at our so`called benefit tourism. It is an

expression that is quite insulting for people on the continent. You

keep telling me that these measures are not necessary or relevant

because the problem does not exist. If the problem does not exist, and

what issue or problem with David Cameron ensuring that benefit

tourism, or whatever else you want to call it, does not happen by

coming out with these very reasonable measures? It is the EU

law itself that provides a lot of safeguards against abuses. You are

saying that his new list of half a dozen proposals breaks EU law? I am

not saying that. What are you saying? I am saying the EU law

allows for greater measures against abuses, and has to be implemented

without any kind of discrimination and it is not necessary to link this

problem with the enlargement of the European Union, where currently, for

example, the majority of the migrant workers do not come from Romania

Bulgaria to this country, but from other countries. I think David

Cameron is making these proposed changes apply to all EU migrant

workers that come to the UK. As Nick Clegg has said, the Government's

duty is to ensure that the right to work is not automatically mean the

right to claim benefits. Do you accept that or not? That is provided

by EU law. What we speak about, it most cases, is to have more action,

hopefully in conformity with EU law, that we can only judge this if we

see all paper, not on a newspaper, what the complete measures are. So

you are not saying that you judge these to be illegal or contrary to

EU law and regulation, you are waiting to see. But it is funny you

say that when you have gone on record as saying as what Cameron's

proposed reflects overreaction and hysteria and runs the risk of the UK

being seen as a nasty country in Europe. So it seems like you have

decided. We have not decided on the concrete items. But hysterical and

an overreaction, and if it reflects on the UK as a nasty country, you

have formed a judgement. The story has been on for some time. Political

forces like UKIP, they have been using language which was quite

detached from the reality, detached from any kind of factual analysis,

and if the main parties echo the voices and the rhetoric of these

parties, it becomes a problem that is difficult for Britain to find

allies on the continent for resolving problems which may exist

in this country or in other countries. Is that what you think

David Cameron is doing with his list of new proposals? Do you think that

he is reflecting the boys of xenophobia? Some of the language

from government politicians, echoes the language of xenophobic

politicians. And political forces. This should be avoided. Why do you

pick on the UK, talking about the nasty and is, talking about echoes

of xenophobia, when we know that the Netherlands poses specific

requirements, three months of residency before you can access

benefits, the Germans in the last day have announced that they are

very worried about poverty migration, we will tackle

unjustified benefit claims, says the German government, the French

government as well has complained about social dumping of people from

poor East European countries. Are all of these key EU member states

nasty as well? Are they all xenophobic? These are apples and

pears. We are comparing situations where they may be similarities, but

they may be quite different. The French discussion is about the

so`called... Not those who migrate, but those who are sent by their own

companies to work on a temporary basis, and on this discussion,

France and the UK are polar opposite in their views, because France is

fighting social dumping and wants to joint `` established joint

liability. To be clear about it, you are saying there is some

indifferent, your phrase, nasty about the British approach. The

British RNA joint letter and that you and other commissioners back in

this band, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, all saying there needs

to be a new commission approach to combat fraud and abuse of the

welfare systems. Return does not seem to be alone. But you are

suggesting that Britain is somehow different. I was speaking about the

risk of a bad image. I do not qualified these proposals. I was

talking about the risk of a bad image. But you make it sound

dispassionate, as if the bad image may develop. You are critiquing it

by using words such as his direct and nasty. I do not invent the

phrase benefit tourism and the other possible insults that are used by

British edition is about Romanians and Bulgarians and others. If you

compare the British rhetoric, also generated by the tabloid press, if

you compare this with the Dutch and the German, they never draw

conclusions about free movement, they do not say it should be

restrict did, the Dutch politicians, the Dutch government, the

responsible minister calls for closer cooperation on inspection

against undeclared work, and this is absolutely legitimate, we are

proposing this for the commission. Do you not fear that you are falling

directly into the hands of those who are most sceptical about the

European Union in the UK, in the sense you are doing their work for

them with the steps you have taken? I think it is important to confront

xenophobia, confront demagogues who don't speak about reality but go to

their gut feelings instead of facts. Are you talking about the British

government itself? You'll A not necessarily.

What do you mean? In your view, demagoguery and xenophobia resides

in the British government? I spoke about some reddish

politicians. In the EU parliament we hear from night of the Raj. `` Nigel

Farage. Here is one MP from the Conservative party in the United

Kingdom, the biggest partner in the government. To say that you should

withdraw, it shows how out of touch UI with reality, the reality of

British people. That is the point I am, I did not say that Britain would

be nasty, I was saying there was the risk of such an image and the

rhetoric is not more measured and the policy formation is not done on

the basis of the analysis which could be shared also with other

countries and the European institutions. If you want to calm

the debate down, make it more rational, make is it wise to Wheeler

phrases like xenophobia and British politicians? We have two name,

rightly, the existing phenomenal. That is why it is time to stop

certain approaches which caused a lot of concern, which also risk

shifting the debate about the UK's position in the European Union to

the wrong direction. We started by talking about the freedom of

movement and labour, the respected economist Paul Collier says the

fundamental reason why it is not working is that it was designed on

the basis of reciprocity. The assumption was that there would be a

largely converged European Union economic space and just as British

workers may go to your country, Hungary, Hungary and workers might

come to my country, Britain. There would be a reciprocity between the

two. There is not a convergence in the European Union, since the

crisis, the disparity in the European Union have got much worse.

Would you accept that? Not exactly. There has been a lot of convergence.

Poland has been growing faster than the UK. Do expect to leave their

convergence has gotten better in the European Union during the financial

crisis when you have seen southern Europe almost on its knees as a

result of sovereign debt. The East European economy is far behind the

western economies in terms of per capita GDP. Where is the

convergence? We should not be so categorical. There are significant

examples of convergence. Poland has been growing much faster than the

United kingdom economy. That means that some polish people will return

to Poland. When we talk about reciprocity we should not just talk

about the labour market. We're talking about people today you

cannot separate the. This is the structure of the single market.

David Cameron says you can separate. He says that he will push hard for

modifications to the fundamental principle of the free movement of

peoples. He says it needs to be tied to the GDP per capita of the country

only of a certain threshold. When a country has reached a certain

threshold of GDP should it be able to enjoy the fruits of free

movement. He has other big picture thoughts, two about how they have to

be limits on the lids of movement. Do you think there is any of this ``

possibility to win that argument? It will be an only goal to reduce the

number of migrants. `` owner goal. Secondly, there are significant

benefits. There are transitional periods. A seven`year transitional

period before transition kicks in. I'm asking you again, straight, do

you think David Cameron has any chance of modifying as he wants to

and limiting the fundamental principle of freedom of movement. I

think it is possible to try, every enlargement is different. The fact

that the 2004, 2007 and the current Croatian enlargement had the same

rules regarding the free movement of workers is not set in stone. In

principle it is possible to make proposals but it has to be

corroborated by a sound argument why exactly this is necessary. Do you

accept that there is no real possibility given the political heat

in this debate about freedom of movement and what it has meant for

big European economies, there is no possibility of Turkey or any other

significant new countries exceeding to the European Union because people

it seems have decided that what happens when poor countries exceed

and the migration flows develop is not acceptable. I know that the UK

has been a friend and promoter of enlargement, this does not mean that

it would be a fast process because the countries that applied, they

have to satisfy a very tough criteria. There have to be many

reforms. You have been a hugely strong advocate of more Europe. You

say, that convergence, what we have talked about, underpinning the

conversation, and only happen not just with a new bottle of ambitious

monetary union but also social union, it has to be collective

action to ensure that unemployment especially a lung `` among the young

do not spiral out of control. You're suggesting that it will take massive

collective European Union action to ensure that. We are going to that

direction, there has been a recognition that there is a

systematic problem with monetary union. A domestic model of the euro

is probably not sustainable. There have to be reforms. There has to be

a reinforcement of the monetary union. That is not where the

politics of Europe lies. You go beyond that, you talk about massive

redistribution between rich and poor economies between the European

Union. The belief that should happen through much more injury ``

integration, centralisation driven from Brussels. I wonder what planet

you are living on. We have seen the dispute and argument within Europe

about even rescuing Greece and others from their sovereign debt

crisis. You should not close what is happening in Brussels. The economic

governance has been reinforced in recent years. The budget has been

centralised. There is movement towards a banking union. That was

designed and now step`by`step being implemented not very dynamically but

I think there is a transition towards a banking union. There is

more and more discussion about other elements, like fiscal union. ) you

think you can keep Britain in the Europe that you are imagining today?

I think if there is a fair discussion about the cost benefits

of EU membership, people will see the benefits for Britain. Nobody

forces the United Kingdom to join the eurozone or to introduce the

euro. But the single market and other common policies, I believe

benefit the United Kingdom greatly. We have to end there. Thank you very

much. The set of whether we have had for

quite some time now is going to come to an end tomorrow, particularly in

the north of the country, it is going to be a very different day,

some very strong winds. This cloud here, there is an error of low

pressure, a lot of isobars are springing around. For Friday, that

means that there is going to be a fair bit of wind around the UK. Also

some sunny spells, actually, for most of us on Friday, the weather is

not going to be too bad. Here are the details, through the course of

the night, a weather front with a short, sharp burst of