When the last tranche of countries joined the EU in 2004, the UK was one of only three countries to give full work rights to their citizens.

I don't understand why in the very beginning all EU countries were not held to the same standards.  The UK is asking for quotas now because they originally accomodated foreign workers when most other EU countries did not and so took in a disproportionate share of immigrants.  

Nothing against expansion, but if it is an EU policy to have open borders, how is it that the same labor laws regarding EU workers weren't in place in all EU countries?  Wouldn't this have prevented the problem of immigration as all original EU countries would have to bear the same burden of new immigrants?  

And what is the EU doing to give people in poorer or Eastern bloc countries incentives to not emmigrate?

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire

In the last 10 years, however, we've had Chirac, Schroeder, Aznar, Berlusconi, Blair, and the likes of Barroso, Prodi and Santer in the EU commission [Santer's commission imploded on a corruption scandal one year before the end of its term]. These have all been lightweights, and have been responsible for such disasters as the Nice Summit and Treaty [a mess the Constitution was an attempt at fixing], the rushed accession of 10 (ten!) new members including a micronation, a country not in full control of its territory, and 8 others with a host of political and economic problems [a couple of them could have been absorbed like Spain and Portugal were, but 8 at a time!], and the "Lisbon Strategy". The last 10 years' crop of EU leaders have been more concerned with their own political careers than with government, national or European, and their reaction to the paralysis they have caused by their lack of commitment to the EU has been to embark in byzantine discussions of "the future of Europe".

It's quite dismal, actually.

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

Germany already has the problems of unification to deal with and some terribly high unemployment in some areas.

As I've said before, I don't really see what the big deal about phased introduction of free-movement is: it's been done before and will be again.

Another core problem is the ongoing attempts by the US to undermine the EU. It opposed the euro, it opposes any movements toward EU military structures outside of NATO and supports enlargement in the hope that it will be a poison pill. The US is in favour of a weak trade-zone, not a strong supra-national structure. This is driven both by delusions of grandeur - the US Imperial Century - and by the interests of powerful industrial lobbies.

Much of the UK establishment and media and many right-wing EU leaders* support this agenda as do many of the free-market religious types.

And before you accuse me of paranoia, can I suggest you spend a while revising the history of US intervention in Europe since 1945?

* Yes, I include Blair here.

From The Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,,1855938,00.html

Yesterday Horst Köhler, the German president, urged the two countries to overcome clear deficits in their judicial systems and in the fight against corruption ahead of a final "monitoring" report by the European commission next month on their progress towards meeting the political criteria for entry.

Midlife Crisis for the European Union
by Richard Lyon
on European Tribune

This would appear a much more fundamental issue than Britain's proposals to close labor markets to the two upcoming members. The EU certainly has many unanswered questions about its identity and future. Continuing to add new member states with the constitution still unresolved raises problems.

My personal reaction is if you are going to take people in you should take them on an equal basis from the beginning. If that simply isn't feasible then it ought to be a strong warning sign that expansion might not be such a good idea.