Assessment and evaluation of bilateral labour agreements signed by Romania

Ten years after the raising of the iron curtain, the barrier between the western world and the former "popular democracies" appeared to have been pushed back to the borders of Romania. The impression that this situation was at a standstill began to fade with the launch of negotiations on Romania's accession to the European Union (EU) in February 2000 and the right of Romanians to move freely within the Schengen area as of 1 January 2002. Successive governments in Bucharest have adopted numerous legislative and legal measures to bring the country into line with the requirements of the acquis communautaire. Particular attention has been paid to doing away with visas and protecting Romanian workers abroad. The act governing the status of foreigners in Romania, based on practices in EU member states, was adopted in April 2001, the same year as the act on border controls and border police operations, in June 2001. Regulations on the status and protection of Romanians working abroad, including a prescriptive framework for agencies recruiting and finding work for them, were adopted in July 2002. One of the provisions of this legislation created the Office for Labour Migration, Oficiul pentru Migratia Fortei de Munca (OMFM), effective from December 2001. Several European countries have recently signed agreements with Romania, allowing Romanians to enter for seasonal work, in addition to existing agreements on the repatriation of irregular immigrants. This chapter looks first at the nature and content of those agreements, and then studies their implementation, distinguishing between the role of the Romanian authorities and recruitment intermediaries. The third section of the chapter draws initial conclusions and assesses the recent agreements.