On 19 September in the office of the Ministry of the Interior a seminar devoted to the presentation of the results of the project “Forecasting migration between the EU, V4 and Eastern Europe: impact of visa abolition” took place. The aim of the project was to evaluate the current and the prospective scale of migration from Eastern Europe to the EU (in particular in the context of visa abolition). The seminar participants debated whether Poland needs immigrants from Eastern Europe, whether it is prepared for an inflow of migrants in the administrative, economic and political sense, whether Polish society is ready for that. Other issues discussed during the meeting included the possible consequences of the outbreak of the military conflict in Ukraine for the migration dynamics in the region.
The seminar was officially opened by Minister Piotr Stachańczyk, secretary of state at the Ministry of the Interior, responsible for migration issues. Then, the guests were welcomed by Ms Monika Prus, Director of the Migration Policy Department at the Ministry of the Interior, and Dr Olaf Osica, Director of OSW. The report results were presented by Dr Marta Jaroszewicz (OSW) and Dr Magdalena Lesińska (Centre of Migration Research at the University of Warsaw). The second session devoted to Poland’s and the EU’s migration and visa policy was attended by: Ms Monika Sweklej, Deputy Director of the Department of Labour Market at the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, Mr Krzysztof Lewandowski, Head of the Migration Analyses Unit of the Migration Policy Department at the Ministry of the Interior, Mr Jarosław Łasiński, Deputy Director of the Consular Department at the Ministry of the Interior, Mr Piotr Kaźmierkiewicz, expert (Institute of Public Affairs / Institute of Migration Studies) and Mr Rafał Sadowski (OSW).
The project has been co-funded by the International Visegrad Fund
