The European Union and Germany have required Poland to clear up allegations about the visa fraud scandal.
Following reports that Polish consulates and some external companies may have granted hundreds of thousands of temporary work visas in exchange for bribes, the authorities said that Poland needs to clear up the allegations as soon as possible.
The EU Commission Spokesperson for Home Affairs, Anitta Hipper, said that reports on the scandal are very concerning and give rise to questions regarding Poland’s compliance with the EU law.
Moreover, Hipper noted that the nature of this matter pushed the EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson to write to the authorities of Poland asking them for clarifications.
As revealed, Commissioner Johansson said in the letter that the authority expects an answer from the Polish government by October 3.
Berlin also required an explanation from the Polish government on the matter. Amid growing tensions within the European Union over migration, the Minister of Interior of Germany, Nancy Faeser, called on her Polish counterpart, Mariusz Kaminski, and her ministry asked the envoy of Warsaw to Berlin to appear over this issue, France24 explains.
As the same source explains, Berlin required during the talks that Warsaw provides rapid and complete clarification of these serious allegations.
On the other hand, Poland responded angrily to such queries, especially to the one made by Berlin.
Minister Kaminski rejected the claims that the country has been issuing work visas in exchange for money and, at the same time, said that these claims were absurd.
Unfortunately, the German press latched onto the opposition’s completely absurd narrative regarding the scale of what we were dealing with. I spoke to the German interior minister yesterday. I explained the actual scale.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also denied the allegations, saying that visas were issued through legal procedures mainly to nationals of Ukraine and Belarus.
It is not true that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs imported hundreds of thousands of migrants from Muslim countries and Africa.
According to France 24, even though the Polish authorities have said that the scheme may have involved several hundred work visas, the opposition of Poland is saying that the actual number could be around 250,000.
The Secret Service of Poland said that seven people had been detained ahead of the October 15 elections.
The Ministry claimed that in the past 30 months, the country has issued almost two million short-term visas. Moreover, 1.7 million national visas were issued to nationals of third countries, permitting them to live and work in the country.
