flash news
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).
On 19 February 2024, the Supreme Court received a legal question (case III CZP 11/24) as to whether a Ukrainian citizen with permanent residence in Poland can inherit under Ukrainian law.
The case originally involved a CJEU judgment (C-21/22) which ruled that EU law does not prohibit the exclusion, on the basis of a bilateral agreement between states, of the application of the law of the country of origin of a foreigner from a non-EU state.
On 21 February the Journal of Laws published an Act amending the Act on Assistance to Citizens of Ukraine in Connection with the Armed Conflict on the Territory of Ukraine, dated 9 February 2024. Under the new legislation, the temporary protections afforded to Ukrainian citizens in Poland and associated privileges have been extended until 30 June 2024.
During today's session in the Sejm, after the third reading, the latest draft bill on assistance to Ukrainian citizens in connection with the armed conflict in that country was adopted. According to the adopted content of the law, the period of stay recognized in Poland as legal and related privileges for citizens of Ukraine are to be in force until 30 June 2024. This is a marked change from recent announcements of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration about which we wrote several days ago. This is because as recently as last week, representatives of the Ministry announced plans to extend existing provisions under the Special Act until September 2024.
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.