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Wary of Roma, Europe cold-shoulders its new eastern workmates
BERLIN/BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Mitko keeps a tidy squat, a tartan blanket on the bed and his clothes stowed away. Lit by candles, heated by a gas canister and padlocked when he is out, it is the 39-year-old Roma's haven inside an old graffiti-covered ice factory in Berlin.
For many European Union politicians, Mitko and his neighbors in the squalid Eisfabrik are a warning of what will happen next year when Romania and Bulgaria get full access to the job market - and welfare systems - of Europe.
Germans, Brits, Danes, Austrians and Dutch are having second thoughts about a second wave of eastward EU enlargement in 2007, which made such poor countries members of the bloc but with a seven-year delay for access to some countries' job markets.
The tone of debate varies. David Cameron in Britain has fulminated against "vast population movements caused by huge disparities in income". One Danish politician has spoken of the need to "stress" Romanian beggars. German mayors have defended free movement in principle but say they are overwhelmed by poor migrants with no jobs and no health cover. . . .