“The foreigners needs to have a work permit to work in Poland. However, there are exceptions, one of which is the opportunity to work without a work permit in Poland in the simplified way. Such an opportunity is granted also to the citizens of Armenia starting from this year,” informed us Alexandra Lenga, the representative of Department of Labor Market of the Polish Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, today, in the conversation with Aravot.am, who attended the seminar entitled “Legal migration to Poland and France: opportunity and regulations” organized in the framework of public awareness campaign of “Migration Compass”.
Our interlocutor presented that Armenia’s citizens have the opportunity to work in Poland for 6 months term during one year, in the simplified way. “There is the right to work in any industry, but it is necessary to mention the industry in the application form. And it is also necessary to sign a contract with the employer.” According to him, only the citizens of Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, including also Armenia starting from this year was the right to work in Poland in such a simplified way. Last year, 438 citizens of Armenia are granted a work permit in Poland, and in the first half of 2014, only 265 are employed on contract base. Thus, according to our interlocutor, legal migration is encouraged.
To our question of how many illegal immigrants there are in Poland, he refrained from presenting data, but he did not deny that Armenians make the big part of illegal immigrants. “The Ukrainians make the majority of illegal immigrants in Poland.” To our observation that anyway there are more illegal immigrants in Europe than those leaving legally, and why it is so, Alexandra Lenga replied that one of the first reasons are the very strict laws. “Maybe, most of them are not aware of the forms to leave legally, and this is the very reason. The other reason of why illegal immigrants are more is that they stay in Europe more than their visa allows. In any case, the number of illegal migrants is unknown, as they are not registered.”
To our next question that Armenian has become a member of EaEU, so how the migration flows to the EU countries can be changed under this situation, Alexandra Lenga replied that in this way, Armenians will keep emigrating to Russia much more and rapidly, but the flow to EU countries will not stop.
Elya HOVHANNISYAN
