Around 40% of Poles questioned in research among eastern Europeans say their image of the Netherlands has changed since the introduction of a hotline to report problems caused by migrant workers.

Staffing agency Otto Workforce questioned 9,000 eastern Europeans, just 27% of whom said they still felt welcome in the Netherlands, far fewer than for other EU countries, reports the Financieele Dagblad.
The Polish embassy in The Hague is unsurprised. ‘The image of the Netherlands in Poland has been badly dented,’ Janusz Wolosz told the FD.
Since the beginning of 2012, the embassy has received forty telephone calls asking if the country is still safe for Poles. ‘Poles think twice about coming here and are worried,’ Wolosz said.
No signs
The staffing agency association ABU says there are no signs that migrant workers are turning their backs on the Netherlands. ‘Unemployment is rising in eastern Europe and Dutch companies have been employing people from the area for much longer than, say, Germany,’ the ABU’s Jochem de Boer told the FD.
De Boer did warn against the call line, the ‘firm language’ used by the government and comments about a ‘tsunami of Poles’.
Just 1% of respondents said the Netherlands is their first choice to go for work. Germany scored 13%, England 11% and Norway 6%.
Stigmatising
‘The government should stop stigmatising eastern Europeans,’ Frank van Gool of Otto Workforce told the FD. ‘The Dutch are getting older and we will need them in the future,’ he said. ‘Research shows that migrant workers contribute €1.8bn to our economic growth and €1.2bn in tax.’
A government spokesman told the paper she expects the number of migrant workers from eastern Europe to increase, especially when borders are opened to Romania and Bulgaria in 2014. ‘We still think Dutch people on benefits should be doing their work and we shall continue our firm policy on any nuisance they cause.’
There are 300,000 eastern Europeans currently working in the Netherlands.