Romania

David Cameron’s proposals on free movement recognise that the European Union is very different now from what it used to be. When it was essentially a club of rich Western European nations, total freedom of movement was workable. But now that it includes countries whose GDP per head is less than half ours it is not. This is not a particularly Eurosceptic insight. As I reported back in February, Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats were thinking of basing future transition controls on per capita GDP to prevent an unsustainable level of immigration. But what is true is that unless the freedom of movement issue is dealt with, it’ll be hard for any government to win a referendum to stay in.

One Sunday evening, while I was trying to avoid ironing my shirts, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to take Nigel Farage to Bulgaria or Romania. The Ukip leader is convinced that hordes of people from these countries are poised to pour into Britain when the rules are relaxed next year, so why not go there with him to see if he’s right? A few weeks later, I put my proposal to him. ‘But nobody will come here from Romania,’ said Nigel. ‘They’ve eaten all the transport.’ So we went to Bulgaria. ‘I am getting lots of funny looks,’ observed the scourge of open-door immigration as we walked past scores of wide-eyed Bulgarians settling down on the plane to Sofia.

‘Can you imagine anything worse,’ a Hungarian once said to me, ‘than a Slav who thinks he’s Latin?’ He was referring to the Romanians, of course. There is a certain degree of tension in Romania between the ethnic Romanians, who run the place, and the ethnic Hungarians, who feel that they have been press-ganged into a chaotic and useless country and, worse, forced to learn a stupid language. The Hungarians hole up in the beautiful wilderness of Transylvania, yearning for the old empire and metaphorically spitting upon their political masters. But the enmity dissolves entirely when a third racial group is brought into the equation: the gypsies.

Ministers and MPs are nervous about a mass influx of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants putting the benefit system under strain next year. But ministers should beware, and learn from the political mistakes of the past. The failure to predict the scale of post-2004 migration to the UK from the EU caused major political problems for the Labour government. The public were left with the impression that the government was not in control of immigration and that Labour were contemptuous of public views and that they were even deliberately misleading them. The Conservatives have less to worry about on the second point – polling suggests the public broadly support them on immigration - but they have plenty to worry about on the first.

What's changing? Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union on 1 January 2007. This gave their citizens the freedom to travel unrestricted within the EU, but countries were allowed to impose transitional controls on their freedom to work for up to seven years. In 2004, when eight other east European countries (the 'A8') joined the EU, the Labour government decided not to impose such restrictions, but this time they did. Those controls must be lifted by 1 January 2014. What are the transitional controls?

Pity the staff at the British embassy in Bucharest. Only last month they were cheerfully banging the drum for Great Britain, telling Romanians what a swell country this rain-soaked archipelago is. You see: The GREAT campaign invites the world to take a fresh look at the UK, and is designed to promote Britain as one of the very best places to visit, live, work, study, invest and do business. Oh dear. Time to reverse ferret. Brother Forsyth reports that the government is so spooked by the appalling thought that plucky Romanians and enterprising Bulgars might think the United Kingdom a land of opportunity that they are considering a new advertising campaign targeting the EU's newest members: Britain is crap. Don't come here.

The Europe debate is raging in the Sunday papers ahead of Cameron’s speech on the matter. There’s mounting concern among Tory Cabinet Ministers that the speech will not go far enough and will simply inflame the situation. One told me, ‘It would be better to make no speech than to disappoint.