(Guest contribution by Caress Schenk) In preparation for Romanian and Bulgarian citizens’ full access to the EU labor market in January 2014, UK Prime Minister David Cameron proposed a new policy agenda that would reduce welfare and employment benefits to migrants from European Union member states, in contravention of EU principles. The proposal launched a debate within the UK about the ability of domestic legislation to counter EU treaty provisions. In light of such debates in a well-established free labor zone, it is to be expected that labor migration in the new Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) will remain a contested issue. Given migration pressures in the EEU zone and a pattern of reliance on domestic regulations over and above multilateral agreements, the provisions for free movement of labor in the EEU treaty are unlikely to usher in a new era of liberalized labor movement.
