One poster shows three crow peaking at a piece of land with the Swiss colours. The other one illustrates a group of sheep kicking off a black sheep outside the nation. This is how the Swiss People’s Party expressed its disagreement to the extension of workers’ free circulation between Switzerland and the European Union to its new joined members, Romania and Bulgaria. Party’s catch phrases defined the two countries as Europe’s “Third World”.

History took a different path on the 8 of February, when Switzerland decided to back up the deal. The Swiss press defined the 59,6% majority almost a plebiscite since worldwide economical crisis and following psychological awe. For once the opinion according which recession feeds protectionism and isolationism has been denied. Well done for the Swiss, with their 400.000 workers abroad taking benefit from the free circulation within the EU, and well done for the Union, which expressed its appreciation through the President of the European Commission José Barroso and the current Czech EU President Mirek Topolánek. How did Romania and Bulgaria respond to the vote, since they were, at least in the contents, the EU countries mainly addressed with fears and perplexities concerning the extension of the deal?

Cynicism and political pragmatism came to the East European banks, veiling them with disenchantment. That “British jobs for British workers” heard some weeks ago (when British workers protested against the employment of Italian workers in a Lincolnshire refinery) surely didn’t ease the debate, as well as recent French claims upon cheap labour waves menacing local communities. Timing and reactions were different, though. The Bulgarian press opted for pragmatical analysis; the Sofia Echo on February 9th issued an article meaningfully entitled “Market Matters”. The article reviewed how Switzerland had to face EU measures of access and mobility in the labour market to avoid isolation and subjection to the Euro domain. Former Minister of Social Policies Dimiter Dimitrov stated that Bulgaria is equal to any other member of the Union and that the results of the referendum won’t determine new migration waves.

Recalling Lea Cohen’s (former Bulgarian Ambassador in Switzerland) words, the Sofia Echo pointed how Bulgaria is verified not to have an high crime rate. Furthermore, the number of Bulgarian citizens in Switzerland is reasonably low, so that any “barbaric invasion” spectre must be unjustified. Currently Bulgarians seem to be more interested in Spain and England than Switzerland. Twenty years after the communist regime and two years past the admittance in the EU, Romania feared more a potential Swiss denial to the deal. Romania’s role in the European scenario is weaker than Bulgaria’s, since the controversies and prejudices revolving around some of its citizens. The day after the vote Cotidianul’s front page entitled: “Switzerland gives the green light”. The rest of the press, though, didn’t echo the issue and refolded on defensive positions, as reported by Le Temps: “Switzerland accepts us, surely not because it likes us. The fear to loose the agreements with the EU played on our side”. The sense of the economical reasons pushing the Swiss towards the deal had the Romanian opinion willing to dim any optimism.

Aware that fears revolving around their citizens abroad have been not exorcised but soothed in order to follow economic issues, Romania and Bulgaria must face now an arduous path, definitely more complicated than any image restyling. As present the two countries turn out to be as huge human resources stocks designed to become empty, with rough cultural and economical impoverishment. Labour and citizens’ mobility within the EU should be a bilateral process. One should hope that for any worker willing to leave, there is an other one regarding at Romania and Bulgaria as chances to fulfil his own personal and working expectations. That would make sense for a new dialectics of mobility in Europe, for his member states to be effectively equal.