It seems that this flow has become self-perpetuating and, even if the causes behind the massive labour migration have disappeared, a future continuation cannot be ruled out. However, the authorities are interested not only in containing this flow, but in creating the domestic conditions necessary to encourage Romanians working abroad to return to Romania. This is a challenging policy issue indeed: considerable economic adjustments (e.g. wage increases) would need to be made and programmes for the (re-)integration of returnees created. How the administration will go about designing and implementing effective policies in this field remains to be seen, since no concrete steps for implementation have been discussed publicly since the new immigration policy was announced at the beginning of 2007.
On the other hand, Romanian authorities will need to turn their attentions to attracting foreign workers in order to meet shortages in the domestic labour market. Since Romania has never experienced major inflows of foreign citizens, the authorities and society in general might have to face a genuine challenge in dealing with increased diversity and integrating a large number of newcomers. The National Strategy on Migration contains some rather general strategies in this area (e.g. relying on the experience of other EU member states). However, EU countries have different means of managing immigration and integration, none of which can be considered unequivocally as best practice. A recent survey
