A brief history of free movement of peoples in Europe from Migration Information. I'm posting it here because there are some misunderstanding that Brexit will change free movement. It is highly probable that it will not given the historical process that brought it about.
The idea that Brexit will role back the history of Europe's evolvement is misguided and overly optimistic for they who believe it is actually a problem.
In the 1950s, when Europe was beginning to recover from the devastation of World War II and experiencing a period of intense economic growth, labor mobility was again encouraged. Because the lack of skilled workers was seen as a threat to the economy, freedom of movement of qualified industrial workers was included in the treaties founding the European Economic Community (EEC), the predecessor of the current European Union, in 1957.
Over 8 million work permits were issued to foreigners in Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany (the original six members of the EEC) during the guest-worker period of 1958 to 1972. One-third of the foreign workers came from within the EEC; mainly from Italy, which was lagging behind in industrialization and suffered from high unemployment.
Workers were recruited through bilateral agreements from outside of Europe as well, especially to work in dirty, dangerous, and dull — the so-called 3D — jobs in the building, mining, and transportation sectors. Significant numbers of guest workers, for example, migrated from Turkey to Germany, from Algeria to France, and from the British Commonwealth countries to Britain.
The oil crisis that started in 1973 put an end to the open-doors policy regarding migrant workers, who were welcomed when the economy needed them but were expected to leave when times were hard. To the surprise of the host nations, however, most of the guest workers had come to stay. Moreover, many of these migrants had invited their families to join them in the destination countries, making family ties a more prominent cause for legal migration into Europe than active labor recruitment. This dilemma was neatly summarized by Swiss author Max Frisch: "We asked for workers, but human beings came."
The right of free movement was initially intended for the economically active population: workers who were able to support themselves in the destination country. However, the texts of the founding treaties of the EEC, as well as the implementation of secondary legislation, left room for interpretation.
For years, European citizens have actively tested the boundaries of free mobility by challenging national administrative decisions in the European Court of Justice, which has played a fundamental role in widening the scope of free movement since the 1970s.
The rulings of the court since that time have gradually shifted policy from protecting primarily free movement of workers to the free movement of persons. In numerous individual cases, the court ruled that a Member State of the EEC could not deny entry to or deport a citizen of another EEC state on the basis of personal conduct unless that conduct would warrant equally punitive action if it were undertaken by a citizen of the former state.
The very definition of "worker" was also gradually expanded to include not only workers in industry, but those in seasonal or short-term employment and apprenticeship placements in Member States as well. Then in 1990, freedom of movement came to be guaranteed for students, pensioners, and the unemployed, as well as for their families.
The process of establishing freedom of movement for all nationals of Member States was finalized with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, which created the European Union (EU) and introduced the concept of a common European citizenship.
Read more here: www.migrationpolicy.org/article/free-movement-europe-past-and-present
This message was last edited by Mickyfinn on 30/10/2016.