The international press, particularly the European one, has been interested over the last days in the "poverty immigrants" and the way how they can take advantage of the generous social security systems in certain European Union states. The aversion and panic have stemmed from the so-called Romanian-Bulgarian invasion which was supposed to start as of 1 January 2014, when the EU labor market restrictions for Romanians and Bulgarians came to an end.

The concern related to jobs and to abuses of the social security system has contaminated British people in particular, then the French and more recently the Bavarian conservatives. The Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian wing of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which is part of the "large governmental coalition" including conservatives and social-democrats, proposed that immigrants should not receive social benefits in the first three months after their arrival in the country, and those who take undue advantage of social benefits should be expelled and forbidden to return to Germany. According to the Reuters press agency, in an effort to put an end to the disagreements arisen in the new governmental coalition regarding Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants, Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet agreed to consider new measures to prevent immigrants from abusing such social benefits. As a result the government decided to establish a commission to examine the impact of immigrants upon Germany. Agerpres writes that the German working group will have to report by June the steps which the government could take to avoid any abuse of the social benefit system by immigrants.

However the government believes there are no real reasons for concern for Germany as regards Romanian and Bulgarian workers, on the one hand because the freedom of mobility is one of the basic principles of the European Union and on the other hand because most Romanians and Bulgarians coming to work in Germany have higher education and are tax payers. Actually the Member of Parliament Bernd Fabritius, the only member of parliament of Romanian origin in Germany, stated in the News Hour programme on TVR that the Romanians who work in Germany are very well seen by the public opinion. Herbert Brücker, of the Institute for Employment Research, mentions in an interview at Deutsche Welle that "most Bulgarians and Romanians in Germany are immigrants looking for a job, not poverty immigrants". According to Mediafax, the Federal Agency for Employment in Germany believes that Romanians and Bulgarians who come to work in Germany cover a deficit in certain areas, and emphasises the idea that they are not "poverty immigrants", as some politicians have named them. The European parliament member Corina Creţu, vice-president of the Socialist Group of the European Parliament, maintains that following the discussions held in Brussels with the European Commissioner for Labour and Social Problems, Laszlo Andor, she was assured that "there will be no changes of the European regulations in terms of migration and free mobility, despite populist-extremist pressures". Corina Creţu also indicates in the press release that Germany needs 1.5 million qualified immigrants over the next years in order to achieve economic growth. Last year Germany registered the most important population growth of the last two decades, as a result of higher immigration.

Sources: Reuters,TVR, Agerpres, Mediafax, the press release of the European Parliament member Corina Crețu