Study says Germany Need Not Fear EU Enlargement

Refuting fears that Germany would be flooded by a massive influx of cheap labor once the 10 new East European countries joined the bloc, a study published on Wednesday by Germany's DIW research institute said that EU enlargement would have no negative implications for the German labor market. The study predicted a migration potential of between 1 and 2.8 million people. "The migration will be too minimal for it to noticeably influence salaries and jobs in an open market economy like Germany's," the report reads. It also pointed out that in the face of relatively low direct investment in the accession countries in the past years, there was no reason to expect that companies would move huge amounts of capital to the new EU member states. "One can expect that EU enlargement will largely have positive effects for the new 25-member EU," the DIW study concluded.