Pax Night and day you can find me Flogging the Simian
SoftWare.
My understanding is that this has been superceded by the new immigration act as of 1 Jan 2005, which basically says that foreign professionals are welcome to seek employment if they work in a profession in which a shortage exists, i.e. do not displace any native or EU citizen. Consequently, no special rules exist any longer for individual occupational groups. source/xlation m.o.
My wife is in IT, and we know a lot of German software people who are out of work.
I don't mean to say that it is impossible (especially if you have a prospective employer in your corner), but it's not as easy as it used to be. "Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Kurt Vonnegut
This is also bad news for my younger brother who planned to do that if a draft was started in the US again.
Scheiße!
Bucharest is a big modern city with anything you and your wife could ever possible want, and hordes of well-trained computer programmers looking for work. You could do a lot worse!
Let me tell you a little secret about being American and living abroad - the US gov't has no idea where you live. The only gov't who cares is the host country. And being a permanent resident is ten thousand times easier than becoming a citizen.
If you really feel that paranoid, look at the Vienna Agreements and the mutual extradiction treaties. I promise you nobody has ever been deported solely to obey some kind of draft requirement. Secondly, the draft gets its list from the Social Services board and with your son being 13 I don't think he's registered yet.
You need to fly that family of yours to Europe for a while and let your wife and kids see what it's like here.
One thing re the UK. They don't tend to pay technical people squat. Might be better at the PHD level, but the average engineer is poorly paid vs the US, France or Germany. In UK parlance a repairman is an "engineer" and they pay accordingly.
How difficult is it to become an Irish citzen?
I suspect you'll have an easier time in Eire if you have Irish ancestors. Google around. There are good sites on Italian rules/regs so prob some on Eire as well.
