Visits from the Accession Countries…

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September 08, 2004

Data released by the Office for National Statistics today show that the number of visits from the eight Eastern Europe countries who acceded to the EU this year jumped from 76,000 in June to 191,000 in July. [1]This is over three times the number (61,000) who visited in July, 2003

In total 366,000 people from these countries visited the UK in the 3 months since May and 11%, about 40,000 people, were expecting to stay for more than 3 months.

Commenting Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, said, "The numbers don't show the net number of migrants to the UK as there is no data on those returning to Eastern Europe, but they do point to the probability of a substantial rise in net migration from those countries."

NOTES:
[1] The 8 countries are Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.