Man, if I still lived in an EU country and the government pulled this shit I’d be making the most of that sweet freedom-of-movement. Way to drive all the skills out of your economy.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 19 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

That's exactly what tens if not hundreds of thousands of young Greeks have done in the last 15 years.

Greece has a brain drain problem. This ridiculous measure is actually sold by the government as an attempt to address the shortage of certain skilled worker categories. By ... incentivizing the few that are left to pack up and leave. In practice, it's just class warfare.

The Greek ruling class is a bunch of grifters, landlords, smugglers and gangsters (always have been, since 1830) and they are basically betting on a "recovery" based on cheap labour.

[–] GBU_28@lemm.ee 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Legitimate question: aren't there barriers / hurdles to permanent residency still?

[–] Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

The barriers are your skills and language. Other than that, no.

Edit: some people move without permanent residency anyway. It has its' drawbacks.

[–] GBU_28@lemm.ee 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Got it, that's all I meant. I thought there were requirements, it's not just "pack our bags, we're moving to Germany tomorrow"

[–] MadBob@feddit.nl 3 points 4 months ago

That's almost how I migrated, except I had to give a month's notice at work and I'd already found an address to register at.

[–] Diurnambule@jlai.lu 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If you have a child it is more complicated than that. You need starting money to be able to move.

[–] Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 months ago

If you had a job that could sustain you and you get a new job within EU that can also sustain you, it's about as expensive as you would expect a long distance move to be. There's no system in place as far as I know to block you from getting permanent residency in another EU country because you don't have starting money. That's just your inherent responsability to figure out like with any move.

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 6 points 4 months ago

A good example of how this is not the case is the UK and Dentists. When Brexit hit and they left the EU (picture if the right in the US had their immigration way), a ton of immigrant Dentists had to leave. It was easy to stay before because of the EU. Now there is a huge shortage of dentists. Surprise surprise.