Fear of Foreigners; Westerners worry about an invasion of migrants, come May 1. But so do many of those in the East.

Byline: Ginanne Brownell and Stryker McGuire, With Friso Endt in The Hague, Katka Krosnar in Prague and Charlotta Larsson in Vienna

Agnieszka Zawadka, 24, can be forgiven for clinging to her European dream. For her and thousands of young Poles, May 1 had loomed as a golden arch leading to a hope-filled future. That's the day Poland and nine other countries join the European Union. Earning about 5,000 euro a year as the office manager of an ad agency in Warsaw, and with a master's degree in finance, Zawadka hoped to pursue a banking career in Paris. But France says she has to wait at least two years. "One year ago it seemed quite possible to migrate and seek new challenges," she says. Instead, all she hears these days is the sound of doors slamming shut across Western Europe.

From Lisbon to Stockholm, country after country among the 15 current EU members have erected barriers against citizens of incoming states who want to work in the richer West. The latest is Britain, which announced last week that it would set up a "residency test" to (as one tabloid put it) prevent "benefit scroungers [from] flooding the country." Only Ireland has not imposed any restrictions. Pro-Europeans are appalled. "East Europeans need to see the benefits of being part of the EU," says Heather Grabbe of the Centre for European Reform in London. "To tell them they can't be part of the single market is a slap in the face. It says, 'You're the great unwashed'."

That puts the incoming nations of Central and Eastern Europe in a double bind. Within these eight countries, citizens will be able to work as if in a single labor market. So the relatively more developed economies of, say, Hungary and the Czech Republic may see an influx of migrants from less-well-off Lithuania and Slovakia. At the same time, the EU's border will shift several hundred miles further east. New neighbors will include Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Once a buffer zone between the EU and the former Soviet Union, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary will be gateways to the world's largest economic market. As such, they will have to cope with a rise in illegal immigration on their eastern flank.

No wonder Agnieszka Zawadka feels let down. Expansion was sold partly on the premise that citizens of the New Member States (NMS) would, after accession, have the same rights and opportunities as the EU 15. Cyprus and Malta, the other two incoming members, will get them on May 1--but not Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. Just two weeks ago Peter Balazs, Hungary's commissioner-to-be to the EU, caused a stir when he said in an interview that since the West had closed its doors, countries like Hungary, with an unemployment rate of only 5 percent, might confront an "invasion... by foreigners," meaning fellow NMS job seekers.

Balazs subsequently retracted his remarks, but many share his concern. As current EU members erect barriers, says Nannette Ripmeester, director of a labor-market consultancy in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, newcomers have started saying, "Hey, wait. Not all of us have bad economies and high unemployment. We're also facing immigration problems." In Slovenia, which has a relatively robust economy, a senior official within the Ministry of Labor, Family and Social Affairs says, "We wish to be open, but we will protect our labor market if necessary." The Czech and Slovak governments confirm that they, too, are considering safeguards. "We have to protect Czech workers, especially when unemployment is rising," says Katerina Prejdova, spokesperson for the ...