The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zbigniew Rau, has said that Germany is interfering in the Polish election campaign by requiring Warsaw to clarify the allegations about the cash-for-visa scandal.
The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz required on Sunday that the Polish authorities provide clarifications and, at the same time, said that Germany may take measures related to border checks due to this scandal.
Following such a requirement from Chancellor Scholz, Minister Rau said that the statements made by Scholz violated the principles of sovereign equality.
Minister Rau further stressed that Scholz’s statements indicated an attempt to interfere in the country’s ongoing electoral campaign and appealed to Germany to refrain from statements that could damage the relations between the two countries.
The competence of the German Chancellor clearly does not concern the ongoing proceedings in Poland. Statements in this regard indicate an attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the Polish State and the ongoing electoral campaign in Poland.
The election in Poland is scheduled to take place on October 15, and ahead of this date, the opposition parties accused the government of having issued hundreds of thousands of work visas in exchange for money.
As reported, the opposition of Poland said that the actual number of people who got issued a work visa in exchange for money could be around 250,000.
Report of Poland having granted work visas raised concerns among the EU authorities, too.
The Commission Spokesperson for Home Affairs, Anitta Hipper, said previously that reports on the visa scandal are very concerning and stressed that they give rise to the compliance of Poland with the EU law.
Hipper further noted that the nature of this matter has pushed the Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, to write to the authorities of Poland and ask them for clarifications.
In the letter, Commissioner Johansson said that she expects the government to provide an answer on the matter by October 3.
Denying claims of having issued work visas in exchange for money to foreigners, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said last week that the majority of visas were issued to nationals of Ukraine and Belarus on a legal basis.
It is not true that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs imported hundreds of thousands of migrants from Muslim countries and Africa.
The Ministry further noted that over the past 30 months, the country has issued over two million short-term visas and 1.7 million visas to foreigners and denied that the country has been criticised for irregularities at the EU level.
