Bulgaria warns UK’s Cameron over ‘isolationist’ immigration plan

Bulgaria’s President Rosen Plevneliev has attacked British Prime Minister David Cameron’s plan to tighten immigration rules for Bulgarians and Romanians, saying it will damage London’s global standing for the sake of short-term political gain.

Cameron, trailing in the polls before a 2015 election, faces a threat from the UK Independence Party, which wants stricter immigrations controls and has been warning about large numbers of eastern Europeans coming to Britain in the New Year.

The British leader is rushing out regulations to stop EU migrants being able to claim welfare benefits as soon as they arrive, addressing fears of an influx of Romanian and Bulgarian workers when EU restrictions on them end on January 1, next year.

In an interview with newspaper on Sunday, Plevneliev said Cameron’s immigration policies risked “a switch to isolation, nationalism and short-term political approaches”.

“Isolating Britain and damaging Britain’s reputation is not the right history to write,” Plevneliev told .

The Bulgarian president urged Britons to ignore negative headlines and look instead at academic studies which suggest migrants have helped Britain’s economy.