FOR AT A GLANCE of how immigration is changing Poland, head to Hala Koszyki, an Instagram food hall in the middle of Warsaw. Take an Uber and chances are the pilot is Belarusian. Inside, Ukrainian waiters and chefs are working on sushi and tapas. Outside, riding on their scooters, a group of UberEats riders from India and elsewhere in South Asia are waiting to take control of all the Warsaw residents who like to spend the night.
Poland, one of EUThe most homogeneous countries, becomes a country of immigration. It welcomed more workers from outside the EU in 2018 than any other country – almost five times more than Germany – and should have repeated this trick again in 2019. Almost 2 million Ukrainians have arrived since 2014, driven by a dilapidated national economy and a war in east of the country, and pulled by higher wages in Poland. They are not alone. In the past three years, 36,000 Nepalese, 20,000 Indians and 18,000 Bangladeshis have settled in Poland. This is a big change: Poland, a country of 38 million inhabitants, had only 100,000 foreigners from all walks of life in 2011. Migration is seen as a political divide EU, with a west open against one is closed. However, Poland is slowly starting to look more like its Western European counterparts.
Unfortunately, Poland is a little too European on this subject. Western Europe turned to immigration during the post-war economic boom. Unemployment fell from around 8% in the 1930s to 3% in the 1950s and just 1.5% in the early 1960s, triggering a labor shortage. Poland is currently experiencing a similar economic surge. Unemployment, which peaked at 20% shortly before joining the EU in 2004 is just over 3% today. Faced with the same problem, Polish nationalist law and justice (PIS), the government tacitly came to the same solution: immigration. Public policies should benefit from the advantage of the second driver. Governments can observe and avoid the mistakes of others. In terms of immigration, Western Europe offers many lessons. However, Warsaw seems to ignore them and enthusiastically repeat the failures of other countries.
The first mistake is the belief that temporary workers will remain temporary. Citizens of Ukraine, Belarus and certain other former Soviet countries can work in Poland for up to six months without a visa. The Polish authorities cheerfully refer to Ukrainians working on the “gray market” and paying no social insurance. Delicate questions, such as how to integrate newcomers, are dodged. Why bother to think of such things if the newcomers will soon return home? Similar “guest worker” programs have already been tried. Germany welcomed around 2 million guest workers from the 1950s to the 1970s. When many turned out to be permanent, the government decided not to expel them. Former Chancellor Willy Brandt, a social democrat, said it would be “irresponsible, inhuman and completely uneconomic”. The ruling party in Poland would have fewer scruples to expel. But its leaders could be discouraged by the spending and the damage to the economy.
Another error is the assumption that (apart from the Ukrainians) there are relatively few migrants, they will not be noticed by Polish voters. Small numbers can have a big impact. In 2019, Poland granted long-term visas to around 24,000 people from Nepal, India and Bangladesh, according to the Polish Economic Institute, a think tank. By comparison, Britain accepted migrants from the Caribbean at an annual rate of around 16,000 in the 1950s. With a population of 52 million at the time, Britain was barely submerged. But it was enough to trigger the rise of racial politics. In 1955, Winston Churchill proposed “Keep England White” as an electoral slogan.
Some Polish officials think they don’t have to worry about integration because Ukrainians are culturally very similar to Poles. They look alike, are mainly Christians and speak similar languages. However, the similarities are an imperfect shield against prejudice. White lager drinkers, Christians and football freaks were hardly a rare breed in Britain before the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Poles in the 2000s. Yet a backlash against immigration from Europe East boosted support for Brexit, which shattered British politics. The Confederation, a far-right Polish party, is campaigning against foreign workers. His MPs bluntly declaring that national “purity” matters more than prosperity. So far, there is little interest: an anti-Ukrainian march by another party in 2018 has attracted only 10 people. But Poland has not experienced a recession for almost a generation, and who knows what could happen if the economy were to slow down.
In any event, Poland may not be able to count on an influx of Ukrainian workers for long. Improving the Ukrainian economy and easing German immigration rules, which will come into force in March, could encourage young people in Kharkiv to move elsewhere. Companies are already looking further to fill the gaps. Personnel Service, a Polish recruitment agency, opens an office in Singapore to manage workers from Asia. The kind of Poles who oppose foreigners tend not to hang out in the chic food halls of central Warsaw. But the arrival of, say, 150 Nepalese or Indonesian workers at a factory in a small town in eastern Poland may attract their attention. Rapid ethnic change can upset domestic politics very quickly, as the main parties in Western Europe have found.
Noisy populists, calm globalists
The most typical European feature of the Polish government in the field of migration is its reluctance to discuss the subject and, more importantly, to defend it. Perhaps it is because the government is more hypocritical than most. PIS is one of Europe’s most liberal parties, but has one of its most liberal immigration policies. It’s like a dirty secret. When a minister recognized that immigration was necessary for the Polish economy to continue to grow, he was dismissed. Like its western neighbors, the Polish government has opted for a combination of naivety, deception and the hope that things will work out. Maybe it’s just the European way. But it is unlikely to work. ■
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the title “How to Spoil Immigration”