In the EU without a work permit, it's a piece of cake: Citizens in some member states could wait up to 9 years for equal labor treatment

After Montenegro joins the European Union (EU), its citizens could wait up to nine years in certain member states to work freely and be treated equally as workers there, according to the four plus two plus three years model, "Vijesti" has learned.

A government source said that the Netherlands had requested the highest level of protection (5+5+5 years) for the closure of Chapter 2 (Freedom of Movement of Workers), while individual member states had not requested any additional mechanisms. However, he stressed that The Hague did not request strict conditions specifically because of Podgorica, but to set a precedent for future EU enlargements.

The Ministry of European Affairs (MEP) did not respond to the newspaper's question about how many years the transition period would last, but a source from the MEP editorial office said that member states had different positions on the issue, and that everything would be known for sure after the meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Governments of the EU Member States (COREPER) on Friday.

This interlocutor claims that the European Affairs Department managed to reduce the limit whose application was advocated (5+5+5) in the negotiations, and that the agreement between the strictest and the Croatian model (2+3+2) will apply to Podgorica.

"Croatia's experience shows that we must protect our workforce and economy," said the interviewee.

Minister of European Affairs Maida Gorcevic announced the day before yesterday that the provisional closure of chapters 2 and 28 (Consumer and Health Protection) is expected at the intergovernmental conference in Luxembourg on June 15th.

Theory and practice

What does Chapter 2 mean for Montenegrin citizens and how would the 4+2+3 model work in practice?

The EU acquis in this chapter allows citizens of one EU member state to work freely in another, just like domestic workers. In other words, Montenegrin citizens could find employment in, for example, Ireland, just like its residents, without any additional bureaucratic obstacles.

However, if Ireland uses the option to delay access to its market for workers from Montenegro, this will be stated in the Treaty on the Accession of Montenegro to the EU, in which member states will individually choose whether to use the restriction or immediately open their labor markets to Montenegrin citizens.

The specific model (4+2+3) would function as follows - for the first four years after accession, each "old" member state that did not open its labor market immediately upon Montenegro's accession would retain its national work permits for citizens of the new member state, without the need to explain why they are doing so.

Once that four-year period expires, member states would have to formally notify the European Commission (EC) if they want to extend the restrictions for another two years. Otherwise, the market would automatically open up.

But if, say, Berlin or Vienna were to take advantage of this opportunity and want to extend the restriction to the last three years, this would only be possible if the member state could prove serious disruptions in its own labor market, or the threat of them. After a total of nine years, all restrictions would legally cease to apply.

Vienna has already done this to Croatia and Slovenia, so their citizens received completely open access to the Austrian labor market seven years after joining the EU.

Montenegro has the option to introduce work permits for citizens of those member states that have introduced restrictions for its workers.

Kapor: Demographic consequences

The experience of the newest EU member - Croatia - with Chapter 2 and its effects was, to say the least, challenging.

Upon Zagreb's entry into the EU, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Ireland and Portugal immediately opened their markets to Croatian citizens.

Editor-in-chief of "Dubrovočki vjesnik" Jadran Kapor He told "Vijesti" that on July 1, 2015, two years after joining the EU, Croatian citizens gained access to the labor markets in Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Germany and Spain, as well as in Cyprus.

He explains that things get more complicated after that, because countries that still want to restrict access to their labor markets to a new member must prove to Brussels that such restrictions are justified by the state of their labor market. Kapor states that, according to the Croatian model, in the extreme case, the restriction could last a maximum of seven years, and only if justified by the state of the labor market.

"Five years after joining the EU, Croatian citizens were granted the right to employment in Malta, as well as in the Netherlands, Slovenia and the United Kingdom, which was still an EU member at the time," said the interlocutor.

Kapor said it is difficult to estimate how many Croatian citizens have emigrated from the country for work opportunities in other European countries. He points out that, according to data from the Croatian State Statistical Office, more than 430.000 people officially emigrated from 2013 to the end of 2024 - most of them between 2014 and 2019.

"In those years, Croatia lost between 35.000 and 50.000 inhabitants annually. So, every year it lost a population equal to a city the size of Dubrovnik or Šibenik. Most people left for Ireland, Germany and Austria. The problem, however, is that the unofficial number is significantly higher - there are many people who moved away but did not officially deregister, most often in order to maintain their status in health and pension insurance," Kapor assessed.

He noted that it was clear that this was a significant blow to a country of just under four million inhabitants at the time, not only because a gap was created in the labor market, but also because the solidarity part of the pension system depends on contributions from the earnings of the working population, and because young people were leaving, most of whom did not yet have children, so that the demographic consequences were "terrible."

Wolf: Significant workforce outflow

Slovenia joined the EU on May 1, 2004, as part of the so-called "great enlargement", along with nine other countries. Damian Wolf, president of the Slovenian national trade union organization "Confederation of Trade Unions 90 of Slovenia", told "Vijesti" that Slovenia also had a seven-year transitional period, according to the 2+3+2 model. He explains that during those seven years, there were restrictions for Slovenian workers on the labor markets of Germany and Austria, and that those two countries only opened their labor markets to Slovenian workers on May 1, 2011.

"On the other hand, Great Britain, Ireland and Sweden opened their labor markets immediately after Slovenia joined the EU," noted Volf.

He stated that Ljubljana did not introduce any restrictions for citizens and residents of EU member states, so everyone could immediately start working in Slovenia.

However, Wolf notes that, since Slovenia borders Austria and Italy, which were already EU members and significantly more developed countries, there has been a significant outflow of labor from Slovenia, especially towards Vienna, but also Rome.

"We estimate that in the period from 2004 to 2022, that is, over the past 18 years, between 80.000 and 100.000 Slovenian workers went to work in other EU countries. We are primarily talking about personnel from healthcare, logistics and transport, construction, hospitality and tourism, as well as technical professions," said the interlocutor.

Volf assessed that this led to additional problems, because, according to him, the demographic situation in Slovenia is very bad - the number of deaths is higher than the number of births. He said that Slovenia has therefore become dependent on the import of foreign labor, and that it is also facing a structural shortage of workers in labor-intensive industries.

"Austria was particularly attractive to our workers, because gross salaries there were two or even three times higher than in Slovenia," said Wolf, adding that this was precisely why personnel from healthcare, logistics, construction, hospitality and technical professions, who were educated through the Slovenian education system, went abroad in large numbers.

"We had a really significant workforce outflow," he claimed.

Wolf said that a similar challenge could await Montenegro when it goes through the transition period after joining the EU.

"... You also have a small labor market. In Slovenia today, we have record-high employment - about a million employees for a total population of just over two million. In such circumstances, the departure of 100.000 people is an extremely large number," he noted.

Kapor: Young people were leaving because they wanted a life in a more orderly country

Jadran Kapor said that the Croatian state has tried to combat the demographic crisis caused by the outflow of population towards Europe.

Thus, he explains, a returnee who has spent at least two years abroad or is a descendant of Croatian emigrants and comes to live in Croatia, may, under certain conditions, be exempt from paying income tax for up to five years.

"Regulating residence and access to education have been made easier for descendants without Croatian citizenship, returnees and their families. The 'I Choose Croatia' program also offers financial incentives to returnees to start businesses and return to the labor market, especially in less developed and depopulated areas of Slavonia," Kapor said.

He assessed that these measures did not lead to significant results. According to him, money and easier employment were not the only motives for leaving, but rather young people left because they wanted a life in a more orderly country.

However, Kapor notes that in recent years there has been an increased return of Croatian citizens, mostly from Ireland and Germany, mainly families with children for kindergarten and school, and that the figure is between 12 and 15 thousand people per year.

"The gap in the labor market is most often filled by people from 'third countries' - many cooks and waiters come from Montenegro and Serbia, people from Bosnia and Herzegovina work in trade, and the most visible are our new fellow citizens from Nepal and the Philippines who work in various professions, from construction, through tourism, to auxiliary jobs in hospitals, delivering mail, and even shellfish farming," he said.

He assessed that the integration of citizens of these Asian countries into society represents a challenge due to the pronounced language barrier, but also due to the mistaken belief that they are taking jobs away from the local population.

"The jobs they do, Croats don't actually want to do," Kapor emphasized.