Estonian workers may be more equal than Poles in future EU, hints Landaburu

The European Commission (EC) does not exclude the possibility of treating workers from some new EU entrants differently than from others. The EC's general director responsible for EU expansion procedures, Eneko Landaburu, hinted at such a possibility when asked whether it is possible to introduce temporary restrictions for Poles, while at the same time giving full access to EU labor markets to, for example, Estonians. "We are not excluding anything, because it might not be a good idea to impose restrictions for everyone and treat everybody the same way," said Landaburu in an interview for the Polish Press Agency (PAP). He also said that Poland's negotiation timetable, which calls for 11 chapters to be closed by the end of 2001, is unrealistic. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p.22) T.J.