The number of Ukrainians who have moved to Poland in recent years is almost as high as the number of Syrians settling in all EU countries combined this year.
In the shadows of the largest European migration movement in 70 years in Europe, the Russian annexation of Crimea has forced hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to go to neighboring Poland. Poland issued more than 500,000 temporary work permits to Ukrainians in 2013 and 2014 combined. Analysts at Bank Polski, a Polish bank, now estimate the total number of Ukrainian immigrants to be around 800,000.
With Poland’s population topping at 38 million, Ukrainians now make up 2.1 percent of the total, compared to 0.2 percent for refugees in all of Europe.
Poles welcome the migration, at least to an extent, since a large number of people have moved west to try their luck in more prosperous countries. The Polish migration left a large gap in the labor market that Ukrainians are now filling.
Poland is also known to be one of Europe’s most homogenous nations, with poor relations with Russia. The country has been up front about their unwillingness to host Syrian refugees, mainly because the Ukrainians are draining the nation.
“Poland, as an EU member, wants to show solidarity, but in terms of refugees, we have a special problem because of the conflict in Ukraine,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said in August. “When the conflict escalates again, a lot more people will come to us. From the signals we’re already getting, several hundred thousand Ukrainians want to escape to us. Other European countries should take this into account when we talk about readiness to offer help [to Syrians].”
More than 100,000 Ukrainians sought asylum in Russia during the first half of 2015, according to a report from UN’s Refugee Agency last week. Promises of a quick path to citizenship have not been kept, and many have to wait for years.
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