Austria to keep in place labor limits

The Austrian chancellor says his country is not ready yet to lift job restrictions on citizens from new EU states.

Werner Faymann said Thursday after meeting Czech Premier Mirek Topolanek that Austria "will stick to the temporary measures for the time being."

Most EU countries have already lifted temporary restrictions, which were imposed on 10 eastern European states when they joined the bloc in 2004 and 2007.

Austria, Germany, Belgium and Denmark still keep them in place. They will have to drop all restrictions by the end of 2013 at the latest.

The rules were put in place to ease fears of unions in older member states which worried a wave of cheap workers would flood their markets when the new countries joined.