REVIEW OF JOURNALS AND BOOKS Annamaria Artner: The EU-Membership and Migration. The Bulgarian Example The Implication of EU Membership on Immigration Trends and Immigrant Integration Policies for the Bulgarian Labour Market, Sofia, 2008 Annamaria Artner Received: 9 July 2008 / Accepted: 20 July 2008 / Published online: 21 October 2008 Ó Springer-Verlag 2008 This interesting and gap-filling book on the complex problem of migration is the final product of the international project organized by the Economic Policy Institute in cooperation with the Council on Social Work Education, Alexandria, VA; the Katherine A. Kendall Institute and the Institute for the World Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The book contains 12 studies of the different aspects of (im)migration into and out of Bulgaria. Although a series of case studies, all provide some general lessons on the subject. Concerning the general circumstances and future development of immigration in Bulgaria (Yasev Gergiev), by becoming an EU member Bulgaria is now likely to undergo a transition from being a country of net-emigration to one of net- immigration. For now, however, it is suffering from brain-drain. Directly following the change of system and the border opening, migration was primarily motivated by political and ethnic considerations. In the years that followed, however it was primarily driven by economic factors. Between 1991 and 2005 the number of people leaving the country for economic reasons reached almost 900,000 and in 2008 alone the number of people emigrating is estimated to exceed this amount. On the other hand, Bulgaria appears to be increasingly attractive to foreigners, though primarily as a transit country for refugees from war regions to Europe. As a consequence, the country’s population is declining and the average age of the population is increasing. The labour market problems deriving from this situation could potentially be mitigated by increasing productivity and life-long learning rather than by implementing new immigration measures. Well-educated and low-skilled people alike are emigrating, causing labour shortages in labour intensive sectors despite massive unemployment. As a result of this shortage, Bulgarian wages have risen to a much higher level than supported by productivity A. Artner (&) Institute for World Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary e-mail: aartner@t-online.hu 123 Transit Stud Rev (2008) 15:605–609 DOI 10.1007/s11300-008-0023-4