This race to restrict pervaded decision-making on transitional arrangements following accession of 10 new members – eight of them postcommunist countries – to the EU last May. Twelve of the 15 countries reneged on promises not to restrict worker flows from the new members as they realized that Austria and Germany were closing their borders to immigration from their eastern neighbors.
包括8个后共产主义国家在内的10个新成员去年5月加入欧盟后，避免跨国事务决策的相互影响更成了当务之急。当看到奥地利和德国对来自东侧邻国的移民关闭边境后，15个国家中的12个都不再遵守不限制新成员国人员流动的诺言。