EU-wide jobs vacant list proposed

Strasbourg, France (CNN) -- A 'jobs wanted' list covering the entire European Union is being proposed by one of its most senior officials.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso raised the idea at his first U.S.-style state of the union speech Wednesday.

He told CNN that a European Vacancy Monitor would allow workers to see all the vacancies across the European Union.

He said the proposal fitted with the rule that any citizen of an EU nation can live and work freely without restrictions in any member state.

But immigration and unemployment are hot button topics in Europe. Most recently immigration hit the spotlight when France deported almost 300 Romanian roma, who living in what France called illegal camps.

Barroso told CNN: "We have a very important number of people unemployed. But at the same time there's a very important number of vacancies, more than four million vacancies.

"Because there is a mismatch between unemployment and those who are offering jobs. So what we are proposing is a very simple system of monitoring the vacancies so that we can make them available to all European citizens, they know where their skills are needed."

He said his system -- assuming it gets approved and is implemented -- would enable a worker to see where the vacancies are.

Barroso added: "The question is to have legal immigration, at the same time fight illegal immigration because as we know, illegal immigration is also leads to crime. This is the balance that we are trying to find."

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