Ready to Go? EU Enlargement and Migration Potential: Lessons from the Czech Republic in the Context of the Irish Migration Experience

EU enlargement is hardly can be seen as the major push factor for migration. There are mainly economic factors that influence the migration decisions. Besides it seems that there is a migration potential, unique for every country, that pre-determines the migration or labor mobility. In our paper we (i) analyze the impact of internal economic factors, such as GDP growth, unemployment and wages on the emigration rate and (ii) compare the migration potential for the country distinguished by the high ratio of outward migrations (represented by Ireland) with those of the post-communist economy as well as the “new” EU Member (represented by the Czech Republic). We come to conclusions that economic factors have the decisive role on pre-determining the migrations and that migration potential and the propensity to migrate as a reaction to worsening of the economic conditions at home are highly correlated. These can explain why there was no mass emigration from the EU “new” Member States to the “old” Member States after the recent Enlargement, as far as it comes to migration potential needed for inducing such labour moves. The potential emigrants from new EU Members States are simply not ready to go to wealthier Member States in search of better wage and employment opportunities.