According to the BBC report Reding indirectly rebutted Tory Prime Minister David Cameron who pledged to negotiate reforms to the UK’s relationship with the EU and then deliver an in/out referendum by 2017 (if the Conservatives win the 2015 general election). But Reding said “the four freedoms enshrined in the EU treaties come as a package… You either enjoy all of them – or none. Those who benefit from the free flow of capital, goods and services must also accept that our citizens are free to move in the EU to travel, study and work.”
She also said UK politicians “project all problems on the supposed issue of too many foreigners moving into the country”. They should rather “work on the quality of education and welfare”, so that people in the UK can find employment and enjoy reasonable social standards. “Simply trying to project all problems on the supposed issue of too many foreigners moving into the country is certainly not the answer. It is not EU policies that are causing problems in this area. But somehow this misconception prevails, and there is a sense that all difficulties could be solved if the UK could get out of them, that it needs to free itself of supposedly ‘alien’, harmful rules and principles that are imposed on it,” reads the BBC report.
Last year a study showed that immigration to Britain has coincided with a boost in national productivity, despite the Tories trying to use the issue to try and win the next election. Research by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research has found a “positive and significant” association between the increase in the employment of migrant workers between 1997 and 2007 and labour productivity growth in that decade.
In a separate study the University College London found that from 2001 to 2011, immigrants from EEA countries made a net fiscal contribution of £25bn (R456bn).
