“I understand the concerns, we’re very vigilant about this. We will not make any wild predictions about what’s going to happen but it is quite different, the circumstances are quite different to last time”, Clegg said.
The British official did not provide an estimate of the number of people heading for the UK as of January 1, but he mentioned that the situation would not be as it had been before, when hundred thousand Poles and other new EU entrants nationals invaded the UK.
After the eight East European countries joined EU in 2004, the immigrants number rose up to 250.000.
Clegg said that the previous Government made the mistake to immediately cancel visas restrictions, instead of doing it step by step, like most of the European countries did.
“We are lifting [the restrictions] at the same time as all other countries in the European Union.”
Also, Nick Clegg believes that migrants will go to other places as well “There are many other countries, particularly in the south of Europe, where there are already large settled Romanian communities.”„
Moreover, “hundreds of thousands of British people benefit by going to live and work abroad elsewhere in the EU..”
According to the Daily Express, which launched an aggressive campaign in favor of maintaining current controls, over 75,000 people have expressed support so far for the petition asking Prime Minister David Cameron to defy the EU and to maintain restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians labor market access.