Poland already had provisions making it easier for Ukrainians to integrate than other arrivals. Today, the Polish Parliament is due to to vote on new proposals making it easier for Ukrainians to access the Polish labour market.
https://twitter.com/larsen_hb/status/1499055280184770565
Compared to 2015 the response a lot of continental Europe, especially Europe’s east, is marked. Reasons?
To take 🇵🇱 as an example
1) countries like Poland had already received substantial migration from Ukraine since 2014. Has eased historic tensions.
To take 🇵🇱 as an example
1) countries like Poland had already received substantial migration from Ukraine since 2014. Has eased historic tensions.
2) Strong cultural/linguistic affinities.
3) Strong solidarity given current situation. Desire to see Ukraine succeed at any cost, as buffer between them and Russia.
3) Strong solidarity given current situation. Desire to see Ukraine succeed at any cost, as buffer between them and Russia.
4) Yes, as one Pole put it to me a few days ago, there is inevitably a racial dimension as well.
Though it is of course early days. Numbers will soon surpass in just over a week *the total* of those in 2015. So solidarity may yet at least fray.
Though it is of course early days. Numbers will soon surpass in just over a week *the total* of those in 2015. So solidarity may yet at least fray.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1499184865148915715
On this important to note this partly about Maidan about Crimea but also economic. Lots of Ukrainians have plugged holes in the Polish labour market caused by 🇵🇱 emigration to W Europe, especially UK. There were well over a million Ukrainians living in Poland before the crisis.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1499303341289086977
As someone put it to me yesterday, “before 2014 you’d rarely hear Ukrainian spoken in Poland. Now, in all the cities, you hear it every day.”
Also worth noting other changes which the war which is yielding in Poland. Generally a feeling of deep pessimism. Idea that war is coming, if not now then in the near future, is quite commonplace. Grim realisation that Russian soldiers may soon be on its borders once again.
Doesn’t take long talking to Polish men at the moment before they bring up the idea of their enrolling in their equivalent of the Territorial Army, or indeed that they’ve done so already.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1499429995575398405
The other extraordinary transformation taking place in Polish social life is connected to the extraordinary numbers of people being taken into private homes. Spoke to someone today who told me she “barely knew a family who hasn’t taken someone in.”
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