POLAND: New immigration law
01 January 1998
Poland passed a new immigration law on 27 December last year with the aim of curbing east-west migration and cross-border crime. It is generally understood that the new law has been passed to meet the expectations of the European Union (EU) in the run up to the start of the accession negotiations this spring. Also, Polish customs authorities will gradually adopt west European regulations as agreed between Poland and the EU in January.
The most important changes are restrictions on the immigration regulations for citizens of Russia and Belarus. They still do not need a visa but have to present invitations from someone in Poland or hotel vouchers. Both documents will be registered, and the invitations will need to fulfil certain criteria. Citizens of the Ukraine and Lithuania do not need invitations but need to show that they have a certain amount of money at the border. The new law has not only been criticised by Russian and Belarus authorities for closing "the only window to the west" but also by Polish traders.
The number of entry refusals at the eastern border has increased significantly over the last weeks. The EU has been asked for financial support until 2002 for a further fifteen checkpoints along the eastern border. Cross-border trade, and thus the income of many families in the region, has declined noticeably. In February, about 1,500 Polish traders from Bialystok, east Poland, demonstrated against the new law and blocked a border crossing into Belarus to protest at the new visa rules that have kept their customers away. They warn of an "economic catastrophe for our town and region".
Another group affected by the law are Poles living abroad and asylum seekers. People of Polish origin or their children living in the Republics of the former Soviet Union, some deported under Stalin, now have a right to return home. The new law, similar to the German law on "ethnic Germans", facilitates the immigration of these people. Last year, about 200 families from Kazakhstan returned to Poland. This year many more are expected to immigrate under this provision to Poland. The new law also includes regulations for asylum seekers, most of whom "disappear" during the asylum application, probably towards western Europe.
In 1997, German border police refused entry to 7,075 people, around 3,000 of them were Polish citizens, many of them trying to smuggle cigarettes into Germany. During the same period, the Polish border police arrested about 10,000 people attempting to cross the Oder-Neisse border.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2.2.98; International Herald Tribune, 10.2.98.<