The President of Romania, Traian Basescu, on an official visit to Spain, took part on a lunch and conference organised by the New Economy Forum and sponsored by FCC and The Wall Street Journal Europe on 27 November.

The President of FCC, Marcelino Oreja, introduced Mr Basescu and stressed the presence of FCC in Romania, a country in which the company won its first contract in 2002.

Traian Basescu explained that the employment moratorium that Spain has applied to Romanian citizens is helping to increase the hidden economy and prevents The superfluity of workers in some sectors such as building from coming to light. He explained that these workers can return to their country through bilateral agreements between Spain and Romania in which the lack of labour is causing a crisis in some sectors such as, for example, the building sector.

"The moratorium prevents working in the hidden economy from flourishing and deprives us of the possibility of evaluating correctly the excess labour that could come to Romania but not through expulsion or deportation," said Mr Basescu. For this reason he asked the Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, to remove the restrictions on access to the labour market for Romanian citizens to allow these excess workers to flourish.