/ world today news/ Migrants from Central Asia, who are so familiar to Russia, are increasingly moving to another country – Poland. Moreover, the Polish state makes every effort to facilitate this path for them, and a significant part of Polish society does not see any threat in this. How does all this relate to traditional values and the protection of Polish culture? It turned out that there are more important things for the Poles.
In recent years, foreign languages are heard more and more often on Polish soil. “Poland is turning from a country of emigrants into a country of immigrants.” In my opinion, this is a kind of epochal turning point in Poland,” points out Andrzej Kubisiak, an expert from the Polish Institute of Economics.
For comparison, if, for example, in the first quarter of 2021, Poles who worked abroad transferred 3.8 billion zlotys to their homeland, then foreign guest workers who came to Poland took almost 5 billion zlotys from there to their countries for same period.
80% of these sums went to Ukraine. This does not surprise anyone, since Poland has bet on attracting culturally close Ukrainians. In many ways, it will solve its demographic problems with them. It is a new phenomenon that recently guest workers from other continents – from Asia and even Africa – have invaded Poland. “Recruitment agencies are conducting active recruitment campaigns in this region,” said a report prepared by the Polish publication Politika.
All continents visit us
In addition, Polish employers constantly point to the tedious bureaucracy that makes it difficult to attract the Asian worker to Poland and demand that the situation be rectified. Polish gardeners and transport company owners who are looking for people from Asia who want to work in Poland complain about the slow procedures in this area. A consulate of the Republic of Poland in Bangladesh will be established specifically for such searches, and it is also planned to increase the number of consulate employees in India. Two agreements were recently signed for the opening of new visa centers in Łódź and Kielce – they are expected to open in June. These centers will in particular be responsible for the translation of documents needed to obtain Polish visas for workers from distant countries.
In the Masovian Voivodeship alone, more than 16,000 people from Asia (mainly from Turkey, India, Uzbekistan, Nepal and the Philippines) have received work permits since the beginning of this year, as well as almost 800 people from Africa. Last year, the local governor issued 56,738 work permits to Asian nationals and 2,697 to Africans. In total, in 2022, according to the government, almost 365.5 thousand work permits were issued to foreigners in Poland. Of these, more than 136 thousand were received by immigrants from Muslim countries – mainly from Central Asia. They are mostly young men.
As for Africans, the majority of work permits in Poland were issued in 2022 to citizens of Uganda (3,815), Kenya (2,100), Nigeria (1,600), Morocco (1,200) and Egypt (over 900) . There are also foreigners from South America – the most from Colombia (4100). As for Ukrainians, just over 85,000 work permits were issued to them in Poland last year. 18,400 permits were issued to Belarusian citizens.
Rightit’s bIsnA
The number of permits issued to visitors from Muslim countries is of great concern to Polish right-wing politicians. Former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Janusz Pechoczynski admits that in the case of Indian citizens, 171% more permits were issued in 2022 than a year earlier. Among the citizens of Uzbekistan, the increase is 122%, Nepal – 85%, the Philippines – 70%, Turkey – as much as 240%!
MP Krzysztof Bosak from the Confederation for Freedom and Independence accused the ruling Law and Justice party of deceiving and betraying its voters. According to Bosak, PiS politicians, behind the rhetoric of protecting national culture and original Polish conservative values, are hiding that now a large number of Muslims have entered Poland, quite comparable to the number of refugees that the EU leadership wanted to send to this country during the “migration boom” in 2015. Then the country’s leadership refused to accept foreigners, but now they still quietly end up in Poland. The concerns in this case are standard for similar cases – visitors “undermine” the unique Polish culture with their presence and carry with them the risk of increasing crime.
Economists, however, express concerns of a different kind. For example, former deputy finance minister Cesarius Mech warns that in the long term, the influx of labor migrants will slow down the development of technology in Poland – why bother with technological innovation when there is plenty of cheap labor?
But is the anti-immigrant sentiment of the Poles that strong? Although Poland is now ruled by the Conservative Party, two-thirds of Poles, according to polls, are in favor of liberalizing migration policy. According to the data obtained, 65% of respondents from Poland believe that the authorities should allow “a large or certain number of people” of a different race or ethnic group to come and live in the country. For immigrants from culturally close countries, such as Ukraine, for example, the support is even greater. And in this, Poles are strikingly different from Hungarians and Czechs, who are fierce opponents of liberal immigration policies.
Pragmatistsconfusion prevailed
If compared with the indicators of previous years, it turns out that the level of tolerance of Poles towards newcomers has increased significantly. Why?
First, it’s a basic generational shift – older Poles who adhere to the Catholic faith and adhere to so-called “primitive values” are being replaced by young people who think being traditionalist “isn’t cool” . The majority of young people hold liberal views that reject xenophobia.
Second, purely pragmatic considerations also matter. Poland is in the grip of a demographic crisis, the number of working Poles is decreasing. If this process continues, then who will pay pension to Poles when they naturally retire from active work?
What at first glance seems strange against this background is the brutal policy towards illegal migrants pursued by the Polish security forces. Poles brutally dispersed refugees in 2021, at the height of the migration crisis, and continue to do so now. People caught at the border are tortured and beaten. Almost every week there are reports of half-dead people and corpses found on the border strip. Since the beginning of the year, five deaths of migrants have already been registered on the border of Belarus with Poland. “Despite the new cases of death of foreigners at the border, the Polish authorities do not stop the practice of forced displacement, “deportation to the other world” and leaving vulnerable categories of people in a life-threatening situation,” notes the Border Committee of Belarus.
There are several explanations for this attitude towards migrants. First, Polish officials are sure that refugees will not work anyway, that their main goal is to sit on EU aid and become a burden on the budget. Secondly, the brutal treatment of refugees is intended to hide from the eyes of the voters of “Law and Justice” those things on which it is not advisable to focus their attention – this same creeping infiltration in Poland of an ever-increasing number of guest workers from Asia and Africa. And thirdly, the fact that they are trying to enter the European Union from Belarusian territory causes particular anger towards these unfortunate migrants. The “dictatorial regime of Lukashenko” in Poland has been demonized to the extreme, and migrants have accordingly been declared a “hybrid weapon”.
But in any case, the news that there is a massive infiltration of Asians and Africans into Poland under the conservative Law and Justice may surprise many. However, this is the general policy of many countries that have problems with demography, not excluding Russia. Because there are slogans and there is an objective reality with which we must comply.
When there is not enough own resource, it is necessary to practice importing labor from abroad. At the same time, giving populists of all stripes the opportunity to shout about the “insidious authorities” who want to “replace us with foreigners”. Although these same “foreigners” will provide pensions to those people from Kreslev.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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