The High Level Group is composed of representatives of EU Member States and candidate countries, European social patterns (employers and trade unions) and representatives of EFTA (which have observer status). The Group's meeting will form the basis of the European Commission's progress report on national restrictions ('transitional arrangements') to be presented to the Council in January 2006. The report will contain information on any administrative, legal or technical issues observed in imposing the restrictions and will also include statistics on labour flow. Member States will have until April 30 2006 to communicate to the Commission whether they wish to retain their restrictions.
Apart from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden, all EU15 Member States took national 'transition measures' (restrictions) in May 2004 to restrict the free movement of labour from the eight new Eastern and Central European EU Member States. Three new Member States, Poland, Hungary and Slovenia, also imposed restrictions on labour flows in the opposite direction. The restrictions, set for an initial two years, are to be reviewed before Member States decide whether to apply them for a further three years from May 2006. Friday's meeting began the exchange of information to help the Member States take that decision.