The Belgium cabinet decided on Friday to extend with an additional three years, the restrictions for Bulgarian and Romanian nationals to freely access the country's labor market by keeping the current regulations allowing for Bulgarians and Romanians to be hired only for jobs considered to have a shortage of employees.

The decision follows similar ones recently taken by the governments of the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

The reasons cited for the Belgium decision are the global financial crisis and the high rate of unemployment in the country's Southern areas.

In order to be able to have a labor contract in Belgium, Bulgarians must obtain a work permit. For some professions, considered to be in need of workforce such as architects in Brussels or construction workers in Flanders, obtaining of work permits is easier than for others.

The European Commission recently published a report stating that such restrictions do not contribute to the solution of the unemployment issues in EU countries.

Belgium, however, decided to take advantage of the provision giving them the right to restrict access to labor markets for up to seven years.

The first transitional period, in which EU member states could limit the access of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens to their labor markets after the two states joined the Union on January 1, 2007, expires on January 1, 2009.

After that each individual EU member could decide to extend the ban for three more years - until January 1, 2012, when a second extension of the labor restrictions for a two-year period is also allowed.

The restrictions only apply to those with labor contracts, not to the self insured.

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