Britain considers 75,000 EU immigration cap: report

Britain is considering capping the number of EU migrants entering the country at 75,000 people a year, a media report said today, citing a leaked government report.
The interior ministry paper suggested net migration from the European Union could be cut by 30,000 from the current 106,000 a year figure, according to The Sunday Times newspaper.
Prime Minister David Cameron wants to get overall net migration below 100,000 a year, and shake up Britain's relations with Brussels, first renegotiating powers then staging an in-or-out referendum in 2017 based on the new settlement.
The Home Office document on the EU's fundamental free movement of people principle suggests high-skilled migrants from countries like Germany and the Netherlands could only move to Britain with a firm job offer.

Low-skilled workers could only move to Britain if they have jobs on a national shortage job list, The Sunday Times said.
The report has emerged just weeks before restrictions on the movement of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens are lifted at the end of the month.

Cameron said Thursday that tougher controls on freedom of movement within the EU would be needed in the future and suggested a restriction based on gross domestic product.
"When other countries join the European Union we should be insisting on longer transitions and perhaps even saying until you reach a proper share of an average European Union GDP you can't have freedom of movement.

"The reason for that is if you look at migration between Britain and Germany or France and Germany, countries of pretty even GDP, the movements are pretty much balanced.
"Its only when you have a real imbalance when you have a poor country and a much wealthier country that you get these vast movements.