umeu wrote:it's up to them, doesn't mean it's not problematic, or that it shouldn't be condemned? and if you believe people should be judged as individuals, and not s members of a group, that kind of policy is deeply problematic. for example, romanians actually have the reputation in europe that they are often involved with petty crimes, what if countries such as belgium based their policy on that, then a person like you (who i assume isn't involved with such things) couldnt have lived and worked in belgium. does that seem fair to you?
It wouldn't have been fair and it wasn't fair when I was faced with this attitude in Belgium and they did extra checks on me, just because I wanted to get a phone subscription plan and it took them a lot of time to run those checks before approving the contract. They were very wary of taking debit or credit cards issued in Romania. The situation was different, though, because Romania is in the EU and legally we did have the right to move freely within the boundaries of the EU and seek jobs, or travel.
But even if it was unfair to me, that doesn't mean I had any right to have a say in Belgium's policies on immigration or expat work. It would have totally been their right to limit my stay there if they considered so and if their policy would have been in agreement with EU laws.
On the other hand, I was working for an EU institution, so I didn't have to apply for a work permit in Belgium, like most Romanians who wanted to work there. My employer was basically a transnational institution, I was never employed by a Belgian entity. So their labour laws didn't really apply to me.