Analysis: Germany to draw back Iron Curtain for the final time

The image of hordes of Polish plumbers, electricians and builders pouring across the border, undercutting their German counterparts and driving them out of business has already produced a number of headlines along the lines of "Germany braced for Polish wave".

Fretful Germans look at Britain's Polish invasion, triggered by the UK opening its labour market after Poland's accession to the EU in 2004, and shudder. But the situations are not comparable.

To begin with, it looks as if chancellor Angela Merkel's Germany is in real need of Poles. The country's unemployment rate recently hit a 20-year low and the economy is humming.

Industry experts across the country say that to keep things fired up, Germany needs skilled workers, including 66,000 IT specialists, and they are hoping that Poland can provide them.

A friend of mine who runs an employment agency in the north-west Polish city of Szczecin says he has been inundated by desperate German firms searching for workers.

With jobs aplenty and a growing economy, some predict that as many as one million Poles might cross the border over the next few years, although, to be honest, estimates on just how many will go vary greatly.

Migration has proved in the past to be a fickle and difficult thing to predict but even minimum estimates put the number of Poles who will travel to Germany at around 400,000, and then there are of course the Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians and nationals from the Baltic states who might also want a slice of the German pie.

In fact, a staggering 50 million central and eastern Europeans, most of them Poles, could in theory try to get work in Germany.

But here is another difference between Germany 2011 and UK 2004: Poles may not be that willing or able to go despite the disparity in incomes between Poland and Germany.

My employment agency friend reports that few Poles have so far inquired about work in Germany, and many of those that have are knocked out of the running because they don't speak German.

They just presumed the English they picked up while working in the UK would tide them over in Germany -- but that isn't the case as most German employers expect a strong command of their own language.

Then there is the possibility that Germany has already missed the boat. Although gripped by economic woes, Britain has established itself as destination number one for Poles.

Far more Poles speak English than German and the vital migration network that guides migrants to homes and to jobs is now well entrenched in Britain.

On top of this, the best and brightest of Poles eager to leave their homeland have already been cherry-picked by the countries that were willing to open their borders in 2004, leaving the cupboard pretty bare for Germany.

All this has led some Germans to complain that the barriers set up in a fervour of protectionism have failed because now, when the economy needs workers, people won't go. Adding to this sense of failure is the fact that despite restrictions on the labour market over the past seven years, thousands of Poles have worked in Germany anyway. Generally confined to the black market, Poles have worked in agriculture and the building sector, and now, come 1 May, many of them will become legal while others, enjoying the cash-in-hand salaries, will continue working on the sly.

So it appears that Germans with dripping taps may well miss out on the benefits of the Polish plumber, but whether this hampers the German economy or not remains to be seen.

But away from the talk of migration figures and economic impact, it should not be forgotten that for people from many of the former communist countries 1 May will see the end of restrictions that branded them as second-class citizens in the European Union.

It is the end of this status that removes one of final legacies of the Iron Curtain.