Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said yesterday that opening Ireland's job market to workers from Poland, when it joined the European Union on May 1 last year, has "worked out well" for both countries

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said yesterday that opening Ireland's job market to workers from Poland, when it joined the European Union on May 1 last year, has "worked out well" for both countries. "The decision was the right one to make. We have had a large increase in Polish people who have settled in Ireland, where they are working hard, governed by our labour law as equals with Irish citizens," Ahern told reporters after holding talks in Warsaw with Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka. "As Europeans, it's worked out really well," said Ahern. Belka said he hoped that the "good example and experience of Ireland would make other countries, such as France and Spain, reconsider their decisions and suspend or perhaps forget altogether about the limits they have imposed." When the EU expanded by 10 members on May 1 last year, most older EU member states opted to keep their job markets closed to workers from the new member states during a transition period of at least two years, extendable to five or seven years. The only exceptions were Britain, Ireland and Sweden. According to sources in Ireland, some 40,000 citizens of the 10 new EU member states have moved to the country since May 1 last year, including 19,000 Poles. In addition to the labour market, the two heads of government discussed the EU budget, Ukraine - Poland's neighbour to the east, which has ambitions to join the EU - and the EU neighbourhood policy, Belka said. Belka also said he had "expressed an interest in locating the agency for external EU border control in Warsaw".