Poland closing door to foreigners with new legislation
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From: MNELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 13:16:41 +0300 (EEST)
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Subject: Poland closing door to foreigners with new legislation
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Felix Corley <[email protected]>
Poland closing door to foreigners with new legislation
Polish News Bulletin
July 3 2001
Poland Closing Door to Foreigners With New Legislation
Poland has passed legislation on nationality, residence and refugee
rights, which will generally make it more difficult to settle in
Poland. The law passed to standardise Polish law with EU legislation.
The legislation introduced technical measures, such as a new database
and new visa format to make it easier to share information on
criminals, but at the same time the law has tightened certain
procedures up. Whereas until yesterday a foreigner could apply for
resident status after three years that has now been lengthened to five
years and years of study in Poland will not be taken into account. The
potential resident will also have to prove that he can not only
support, but also provide for his and his dependant's health care.
This will affect graduates from African countries, even those who have
started a family in Poland. The law will also crack down on fake
marriages with criteria such as whether the couple live together, how
long they knew one another before the wedding and what they know about
one another. The law will take into account humanitarian criteria,
such as the situation of Armenian refugees from the Armenian-Azeri
conflict. War refugees will be covered by the new legislation, which
will allow them temporary refuge until their country is at peace
again. The legislation has tightened up the procedure concerning
people whose application is "clearly unjustified." This concerns
"refugees" from countries where there is no conflict or persecution of
any particular group or people who have had their application for
refugee status refused once in the past. Until now foreigners affairs
were dealt by the Interior Ministry, but now a new Office for
Repatriation and Foreign Nationals has been established.
3 July issue of Gazeta Wyborcza p. 3
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