Strasbourg, January 15th, 2008 - Romanian MEP Renate Weber criticises the way press manipulates (willingly or ignorantly) when it refers to the Romanian working as "immigrant", although they are - since over a year now - citizens of the European Union and, as such, "the rules regarding immigrants do not apply to them anymore; but the rules regarding free movement inside the EU".

Weber has also criticised the Italian prime-minister, Romano Prodi, for his frequent use of the expression "Romanian immigrants", although "in his case ignorance is out of the question, since he was president of the European Commission".

The Romanian MEP has taken part today, in Strasbourg, in the launch of Who´s afraid of EU´s latest Enlargement, a report put together by ECAS (European Citizen Action Service).  The event was organized by Jean Lambert, Brittish MEP member of the Greens Group. The report - the first on this issue, after Romania and Bulgaria have joined the EU - was presented by its author, Julianna Traser and ECAS director, Tony Venables.

Among other problems, the report underlines the need of legal information before going abroad to work, because the different national legislations are inaccessible to most people. In this context, the liberal MEP has criticised the European Commission, for "not thinking about creating a portal where information is offered, in the EU official languages, on work and studies' requirements in each member state".

The report is available in full on ECAS website, here .