The opposition parties in Poland have strongly criticized the government due to allegations that the consulates of the country may have granted hundreds of thousands of temporary work visas in exchange for bribes.
Such allegations present a big potential problem for the ruling party, PiS, as the next elections are to take place on October 15, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
As Politico explains, Poland’s ruling party has always pushed an anti-immigrant message and went ahead with the construction of a fence along its border with Belarus to prevent irregular migration.
However, despite taking such measures to prevent irregular entry into the country, the PiS government has been accused of facilitating their entry into the country instead.
The leader of the opposition Civic Coalition party, Donald Tusk, said that the same government that pushes irregular immigrants away is the same one that brings the highest number of them in Europe.
Do you know who in Europe brings in the most Muslim immigrants? The government that frightens them.The PiS government.
As Polish newspapers have alleged, a “corruption scheme” of granting work visas to citizens of third countries thrived in the country. They said that people from developing countries paid around €5,000 to jump the queue at Polish consulates abroad.
The anti-corruption police of Poland are currently investigating the scheme, and according to Gazeta Wyborcza, the investigation came after pressure from EU countries that were alarmed about the high number of work visas being issued by Poland.
A foreign national who chose to remain anonymous said that in an African country, there were stands in front of the Polish embassy where you could buy stamped visas.
Data provided by Eurostat show that Poland issued almost 970,000 first residence permits in 2021. Such a number represents a third of all permits issued by EU countries to citizens of third countries. As for 2022, Poland has not updated its numbers.
According to Politico, the Civic Coalition Members of Parliament Marcin Kierwiński and Jan Grabiec said that up to 350,000 visas may have been issued by the country’s consulates in the last three years in violation of regulations.
Concerns have been raised among the neighbouring countries of Poland following such reports as all those who hold a visa issued by Poland can travel in any other country part of the Schengen Area.
Germany is one of the countries that has complained about an increased number of irregular entries, pushing the states of Brandenburg and Saxony to reintroduce border controls with Poland.
