flash news: #foreigners
Information has appeared on the website of the Governmental Legislation Centre about positions on ongoing work on amendment of the Foreigners Act, as submitted in March this year by, among others, provincial governors and the Citizens' Rights Ombudsman. Already at this stage of work on the Act, there are divergent positions in individual opinions concerning, inter alia, electronic form of the legalisation process (about which we wrote last week) or the elimination from a decision to grant a so-called EU Blue Card of elements such as the indication of the conditions of work or the employing entity.
Employer representatives note the need to provide entities entrusting work to foreigners with the power to monitor the status of pending proceedings, on which the Act in its current wording is silent.
On 9 February 2024, a draft bill on amendments to the Act on Foreigners and certain other acts was published on the website of the Government Legislation Centre, which envisages revolutionary changes in the way applications for residence permits are submitted.
Among other things, the draft provides for the introduction of an obligation to submit the above-mentioned applications via an ICT system.
The first opinions of the provincial governors on the planned changes were made known at the beginning of last week. Most of them are negative – mainly because of the proposed change in the way applications are to be submitted.
The Forum on Foreigners at the Mazovian Province Governor's Office was reactivated on March 1st. On that day, the Deputy Governor of Mazovian Voivodeship Office met with public institutions and non-governmental organisations acting on behalf of foreigners in order to plan further activities and discuss current needs in the area of broadly defined support for foreigners in Poland.
The meeting was attended by representatives of 15 NGOs, the Office of the Capital City of Warsaw, as well as the Director and Deputy Director of the Mazovian Voivodeship Office Department of Foreigners' Affairs.
As we read in an announcement from the President of the Central Statistical Office, the average salary in the national economy in 2023 was PLN 7,155.48. This means that a foreigner who wants to apply for an EU Blue Card (i.e. a temporary residence permit to work in a highly qualified profession) must currently earn at least PLN 10,733.22 gross per month (i.e. PLN 1,214 gross more than last year).
Latest information from the Central Statistical Office (GUS), released in January 2024, shows that on 31 July 2023, some 996,500 foreigners were working in Poland. This is around 6.5 per cent of the total employed workforce.
The largest number of foreign employees, namely 690,800, are Ukrainian. Nevertheless, a certain downward trend has been observed in the share of Ukrainians in all foreigners. Compared to January 2022, the decrease is 4 percentage points.
A document called “Schedule of work on drawing up a comprehensive, responsible and secure migration strategy for Poland for 2025-2030” has been published by the Ministry of the Interior and Administration.
The schedule anticipates that a final draft of the strategy is to be ready by the end of this year. The next step, planned for January-June 2025, is to involve new draft bills to regulate immigration, including a new bill on foreigners.