Polish Minister: there may be more than 2 million Ukrainian migrants in Poland
Beata Kempa, Poland's Minister for Humanitarian Aid said that there may be more than 2 million Ukrainian migrants in Poland.
“According to our estimates, there may be more than two million Ukrainians in Poland. Of course, many of them stay here because of the conflict in Ukraine and this is the argument we want to present to the European Commission,” she said during an interview with Super Express in response to a question about the increasing number of immigrants from Eastern Europe and the actions of Poland to help Syrian refugees .
According to Kempa, the situation on the country’s eastern border is fully under the Polish government’s control and Poland consciously accepts Ukrainian migrants.
She also said, "In Poland there is no problem with the illegal flow of refugees from Ukraine."
According to the calculations by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, there are about 1 million Ukrainians in Poland. Recently, the government of Poland gave similar number.
Last year, Polish employers filed 1.7 million applications for the employment of Ukrainian citizens, one third more than in 2016, and since 2014 this growth has reached 350%. However, the number is not identical to the number of employed Ukrainians which is even less.
Poland uses a large number of migrant workers from Ukraine as an argument in negotiations with the European Commission, refusing to accept refugees from the Middle East. Ukraine has repeatedly stated that this is an erroneous statement as Ukrainians go to Poland for work, not asylum.