Citizens of Romania and Bulgaria will be freely admitted to Finland's labour market as of January 2007, when they are scheduled to join the EU, Finnish parliament unanimously decided.

As of May 1 this year Finland will also remove restrictions on the free movement of labour for the eight new member countries from Central Europe that joined the bloc in 2004.

The proposal, which was submitted to the Finnish parliament by the government, halts the special transitional arrangements that limit the free mobility of labour from the new EU member states.

Until now Britain, Ireland and Sweden have been the only old EU countries to embrace workers from the new members, and other countries have until the end of April to decide if they too would give up restrictions.

The government argued that the labour markets of countries that did not introduce any transition period (such as Sweden, Great Britain, and Ireland) have not experienced major shocks.

The restrictions on workers from the new member states have included demands for work permits - which some countries limit with quotas - but do not apply to workers from Cyprus or Malta, which also joined the bloc in 2004.

The measures are supposed to be phased out over a seven-year period, with the first of the three phases due to end on April 30, as EU states are not allowed to discriminate against workers on the basis of nationality.

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