Worker mobility may be a fundamental right of EU citizens but only two per cent work in another member state.

Many stay put because they are happy with the situation at home and others are put off by the red tape involved in making the move to another country.

A Eurobarometer survey revealed that one in two Europeans were keen about the opportunity to work abroad but very few actually took up the challenge.

To reverse this trend and reduce the mobility obstacles jobseekers and employers still face, the European Commission launched the European Job Mobility Action Plan in December, and will run until 2010.

Increased job mobility is key to improving the EU labour market. With this in mind, Eures, the Europe-wide employment network, held the Your First Job Abroad initiative to support European workers who never benefited from a mobility experience.

During an event at the Cité Universitaire Internationale in Paris and in the presence of 50 successful participants working in another member state, their employers and their Eures advisers, the topic of job mobility was discussed in detail.

It emerged that Europeans were still uncertain of the potential benefits of mobility and they continued to face legal and administrative obstacles, such as having to deal with high rents, poor housing availability, difficulties for spouses and partners to find employment, lack of information on the portability of pensions, language barriers and difficulties in having their qualifications recognised abroad.

Christophe Maier, from the EC Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, said the Commission was convinced of Eures's role as a one-stop shop for job mobility in Europe.

Established in 1993, Eures is active in 30 countries. Its goal is to provide information, advice and recruitment/placement services. Its website carries on average over 1.4 million job vacancies, with 300,000 CVs and over 15,000 employers registered.

Mr Maier said that, since EU enlargement in 2004, mobility had increased but it remained at just over two per cent. There were about 16 million unemployed across Europe and about three million job vacancies.

Two Finnish sisters and a couple from Portugal spoke to The Times about their experience working in Malta and praised their employers and the public for making them feel welcome.

Reija and Riina Poutanen both worked at Fashion Retailers Enterprises Ltd (Malta) as sales associates. Their work experience in Malta has now ended and they will be going their separate ways. They said they had a great time in Malta, which, coupled with the great weather, made their first job abroad a memorable one.

Reija explained she first visited Malta on holiday and her younger sister, Riina, followed to study English. They both fell in love with the country and wanted to move to Malta to work. They spoke to Eures advisers and found a placement - they must have worked very hard because they only managed to fit in a few trips to the beach.

Reija said she is planning to move to the US to work and her sister, who designs shoes, will be moving to the UK to continue studying footwear design at a university there.

Claire Chetcuti, a Eures adviser based in Malta, said her job is to link people who expressed an interest in working in Malta to job vacancies.

She has witnessed a steady increase of interest from people wishing to work here. Maltese were also interested in working abroad with the UK and Ireland being the most popular choices.

Maltese employers were expressing an interest in taking on workers from other EU member states, especially when they do not find the right staff here.

On this, Ms Chetcuti said Eures, a branch of the Employment and Training Corporation, first tried to link the vacancy to the unemployed in Malta.

Philip Ciantar, Playmobil Malta operations manager, said his company faced a shortage of technical staff and, unable to find Maltese workers, it had to look for staff abroad.

Through the ETC and Eures, the company managed to employ Vera Lucia Lopes Afonso and her boyfriend Filipe Alexandre Pascoalinho Vaz Condez, from Portugal. The couple were looking to pursue their chosen profession as technicians due to the lack of similar opportunities in their home country and they proved to be the perfect candidates.