What EU legislation/directives allow unrestricted population movement/living within EU?

Question

Would like to know which legislation is to thank for unrestricted movement of polish, portuguese, latvians, romanians around EU.

Answer 1

I would like to know first what is Portugal doing in that group of new countries to the EU?

Like someone said Portugal is a EU member since 1986, that's 22 years ago.

Answer 2

That would be article 39 of the EC Treaty, see http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/fr...

Poland and Latvia only joined the EU in 2004 and Romania in 2007.  Countries already in the EU were allowed a 7 year transition period before fully opening their job markets to the new member countries.  Some have made use of that and some not.  If you are interested to see which countries have limited work permits of which of the new members, you can see that at http://www.europa.eu.int/eures/main.jsp?...

Portugal however has been a member of the EU since 1986