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A new bill on amending the Act on Foreigners and certain other acts has appeared on the website of the Government Legislation Centre. The scope of the envisaged changes has been narrowed, focusing on regulations concerning treaty obligations resulting from Poland's membership in the European Union as well as those resulting from the case-law of the Court of Justice of the EU.

Other changes, which were included in the previous version of the draft amendment (e.g. concerning the digitization of proceedings on legalisation of residence in Poland), are to be regulated separately.

This Friday, 17 May 2024, the deadline will pass for adapting workstations equipped with electronic visual displays to new occupational health and safety requirements.

As a reminder, if an employee uses portable equipment (in particular a laptop), for at least half of daily working hours, the employee’s workstation must be furnished with a desktop monitor or a suitable stand and an additional keyboard and mouse.

We discuss the other key changes here

Text of the regulation: >>>

The Council of Ministers adopted a draft amendment to the Law on Assistance to Ukrainian Citizens in Connection with the Armed Conflict in that Country.

The bill was introduced into the Sejm (Polish Parliament’s lower chamber) on 30 April. The most important amendments include:

• extension of Ukrainian citizens’ legal right to stay in the Republic of Poland till 30 September 2025,
   
• improvements in the system of support, specifically regarding accommodation and food for refugees from Ukraine,
   
• linking the 800+ benefit to compulsory education,

On 25 April 2024, following a complaint from the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Poland has failed to fulfil its obligation to implement the EU’s Whistleblower Protection Directive.

EU Member States were given time to 17 December 2021 to adopt the necessary national regulations. According to the CJEU, “the wide scope of the regulations under the mentioned directive does not justify the lengthening time being spent on legislative work”. The CJEU also did not accept the difficulties that Poland raised in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic or the reception of war refugees from Ukraine.

As of 23 April, the acceptance of new applications for consular services for Ukrainian citizens, specifically men of conscription age (18-60) who are temporarily abroad, has been suspended, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reports in a press release.

The change is motivated by the need to bring the procedures in line with new regulations under Ukraine's Mobilisation Law, which are set to take effect on 18 May of this year. The new regulations are aimed at curbing evasion of military service. Among other things, they restrict the issuance of foreign passports without updating military registration documents.

With spring, we have overhauled our blog, and relaunched it with a new look and feel. News flashes pop out with more zing. We have added a timeline with key milestones in implementation of the Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970).

We invite you to surf our blog and sign up for our newsletters—general or targeted to pay transparency.

The premises for a draft bill on collective labour agreements and collective arrangements have been published in the list of the Council of Ministers’ legislative and scheduled work.

The new regulations are intended to regulate comprehensively the rules for entering into and registering collective labour agreements and collective arrangements. From the perspective of employers, the most important of these are:

• Specific term of an agreement. Two terms have been introduced for these agreements: 5 years for an enterprise-level agreement and 10 years for a multi-enterprise agreement. The parties will be able to extend an agreement’s duration for a further term.
   
• Open range of matters. The range of matters that may be covered by an agreement will be determined by the parties. This represents a significant broadening of the existing scope.

Work is still in progress on the amendment to the law on assistance to Ukrainian citizens in connection with the armed conflict in Ukraine. A new draft was published on 17 April which includes the following changes (as compared to the previous version):

• The change of status from UKR to CUKR (where a person with UKR status receives a temporary residence card) will take place on the day he/she receives the card and not on the day he/she receives a temporary residence permit;
   
• The requirement for a minimum period of stay in Poland and a minimum number of permits will be abolished when applying for a residence card to reunite with family members;

On 17 April 2024, a draft law on the protection of whistleblowers was submitted to Parliament, which aims to implement the European Parliament and Council (EU) Directive 2019/1937 of 23 October 2019.

We wrote about the most important changes for employers with respect to the previous draft here and the text of the draft can be reviewed here.

The law is generally expected to enter into force three months after its announcement.

The European Court of Human Rights, in its judgment of 20 February 2024 (48340/20 Dede), found that disciplinary dismissal for providing critical information about the actions of a superior is contrary to Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which deals with freedom of expression.

The dispute arose after a Turkish employee sent an e-mail to a group of employees from the HR department criticising management methods at the workplace. He alleged, among other things, distancing by his supervisor, the use of biased criteria in the recruitment process, favouritism towards certain employees and a lack of action to improve the overall situation. The employer dismissed the employee on disciplinary grounds, as it considered the message to be an infringement of the supervisor's personal rights and a violation of work order.

On 31 March 2024, Bulgaria and Romania were 'partially' accepted into the Schengen area.

Controls on persons at the internal air and sea borders of both countries have now been abolished. However, controls remain in place at land borders between Bulgaria, Romania and the other Schengen countries.

The next step of integration is expected to be a decision on the targeted abolition of controls also at land borders by the end of 2024.

On 28 March 2024, another bill (dated 27 March 2024) was published on the website of the Governmental Legislation Centre, which aims to implement Directive 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council (EU) of 23 October 2019 on the protection of whistleblowers under EU law. On 2 April 2024, the Council of Ministers adopted the draft, so it is expected to soon be debated by parliament.

The most important changes for employers with respect to the previous draft:

• Subject of violations. Human trafficking has been removed from the list of areas in which whistleblowers may report violations. It has also been clarified that only violations of constitutional human and civil liberties and rights in an individual's relations with public authorities can be reported.

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.

On 6 March 2024, another draft bill (dated 26 February 2024) was published on the website of the Governmental Legislation Centre, which aims to implement Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of whistleblowers.

The most important changes for employers compared to the previous draft:

• Subject of violations: The catalogue of areas whose violations may be the subject of whistleblower reports has been expanded. The new areas are: human and civil liberties and rights, corruption, human trafficking, and labour law – as a result, whistleblower reports will be able to concern, inter alia, mobbing, discrimination, correct accounting of working time or observance of health and safety rules.

The Forum on Foreigners at the Mazovian Province Governor's Office was reactivated on March 1^st. 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.

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.

According to the bill released on Friday, changes to the law on assisting citizens of Ukraine in light of the armed conflict in their country propose extending special provisions and rights for Ukrainian citizens until June 30, 2024, for the time being. This extension covers aspects such as prolonging the legality of stay of Ukrainian citizens in Poland, the right to work based on notifications, and the right to engage in business activities. Further period (until at least 4 March 2024) will be the subject of separate legislative works.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced the suspension of participation in the programme "Poland. Business Harbour" as of 26 January 2024.

The purpose of the programme was to facilitate the relocation of IT professionals to Poland, especially from Belarus, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Armenia, through a simplified process of obtaining visas.