The payment of unemployment benefits to EU citizens from ten eastern European countries has increased significantly.

According to figures released by the Employment Ministry, state benefits to workers from the ten countries in question increased more than tenfold over a four-year period, jumping from 32 million kroner in 2008 to 345 million kroner in 2012.

READ MORE: Political concern over rising number of EU citizens on Danish dole

The government said that it intends to take a closer look at the workers' actual time residing in Denmark, but a growing number of parties in parliament want tougher constraints on access to unemployment benefits for workers who come to Denmark under the EU rules on free movement.

“This is an increasing problem that we will face in the coming years,” Claus Hjort Frederiksen (V), the former finance minster, told Politiken newspaper.

“We have to protect ourselves because this problem is not going to go away.”