Official: Five percent of Estonia’s work force could wish to work in EU

It is not likely that Estonia's accession to the European Union would lead to massive moving of the work force to old EU members, perhaps some five percent of the labor would be interested in leaving, said Henrik Hololei, head of the government's European integration office. Speaking at a seminar arranged by the Helsinki stock exchange, Kauppalehti and Evli Bank in Helsinki, Hololei said that nor was the present EU suffering from massive emigration to countries with a higher pay level. The Baltic countries see few risk factors in accession to the EU. Baltic officials estimate that labor costs will remain low in their countries for a long time to come, which boosts interest to bring business operations to these countries.