Poland issued more first residence permits to immigrants from outside the European Union than any member state last year. It is the third year in a row that Poland has led the EU, reflecting an unprecedented recent wave of immigration.
The new figures for 2019 – released by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office – show that a total of almost three million first residence permits were issued to citizens of non-member countries by all member states combined.
Of those, the largest number (724,416) were issued by Poland, ahead of Germany (460,340), Spain (320,037) and France (285,086). Poland’s figure rose from the 635,335 it issued in 2018. In that year and in 2017 it also issued more permits than any other EU state. In 2016 and 2015, it was second on the list, behind the United Kingdom.
In a ranking of the number of residence permits issued in relation to countries’ population size, Poland was third in the EU, behind only the small islands of Malta and Cyprus.
The mass immigration to Poland of recent years has been driven above all by Ukrainians, and the latest figures show that they made up 83% of permits issued last year (599,468). Among Ukrainians who received first residence permits in the entire EU last year, 79% obtained them in Poland.
The second largest group arriving in Poland came from another eastern neighbour, Belarus (54,107), followed by Georgia (9,282), Russia (8,989) and Moldova (6,343).
Among permits issued by Poland, 86% were for employment reasons, which was more than double the entire EU proportion of 41%. By contrast, Poland issued a far smaller proportion of permits for family, education or “other” reasons than the bloc as a whole.
Ukrainian workers have become an integral part of the Polish economy. A report by the National Bank of Poland last year found that they had created 11% of Poland’s GDP growth since 2014. Amid the coronavirus lockdown, some industries struggled as migrant workers returned home and others were unable to arrive.
A CBOS poll earlier this year found three quarters of Poles saying that immigrants have benefited the economy. Another recent international survey by Gallup found that Poland has recorded one of the biggest increases in acceptance of migrants since 2016.
Main image credit: Jakub Orzechowski / Agencja Gazeta
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
