View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Cadmus, EUI Research Repository INTERACT – RESearcHING THIRD COUNTRY NatiONALS’ INTEGratiON AS A THREE-WAY PROCESS - IMMIGrantS, COUNTRIES OF EMIGratiON AND COUNTRIES OF IMMIGratiON AS ActORS OF INTEGratiON Integration Policy and Activities in Poland Renata Stefańska INTERACT Research Report 2015/07 CEDEM INTERACT Researching Third Country Nationals’ Integration as a Three-way Process - Immigrants, Countries of Emigration and Countries of Immigration as Actors of Integration Research Report Country Report INTERACT RR2015/07 Integration Policy and Activities in Poland Renata Stefańska Research Associate at the Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw This text may be downloaded only for personal research purposes. Any additional reproduction for other purposes, whether in hard copies or electronically, requires the consent of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. Requests should be addressed to [email protected] If cited or quoted, reference should be made as follows: Renata Stefańska, Integration Policy and Activities in Poland, INTERACT RR 2015/07, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, San Domenico di Fiesole (FI): European University Institute, 2015. The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and should not be considered as representative of the official position of the European Commission or of the European University Institute. © 2015, European University Institute ISBN: 978-92-9084-272-9 DOI: 10.2870/938460 Catalogue Number: QM-02-15-127-EN-N European University Institute Badia Fiesolana I – 50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI) Italy http://www.eui.eu/RSCAS/Publications/ http://interact-project.eu/publications/ http://cadmus.eui.eu INTERACT - Researching Third Country Nationals’ Integration as a Three-way Process - Immigrants, Countries of Emigration and Countries of Immigration as Actors of Integration In 2013 (Jan. 1st), around 34 million persons born in a third country (TCNs) were currently living in the European Union (EU), representing 7% of its total population. Integrating immigrants, i.e. allowing them to participate in the host society at the same level as natives, is an active, not a passive, process that involves two parties, the host society and the immigrants, working together to build a cohesive society. Policy-making on integration is commonly regarded as primarily a matter of concern for the receiving state, with general disregard for the role of the sending state. However, migrants belong to two places: first, where they come and second, where they now live. While integration takes place in the latter, migrants maintain a variety of links with the former. New means of communication facilitating contact between migrants and their homes, globalisation bringing greater cultural diversity to host countries, and nation-building in source countries seeing expatriate nationals as a strategic resource have all transformed the way migrants interact with their home country. INTERACT project looks at the ways governments and non-governmental institutions in origin countries, including the media, make transnational bonds a reality, and have developed tools that operate economically (to boost financial transfers and investments); culturally (to maintain or revive cultural heritage); politically (to expand the constituency); legally (to support their rights). INTERACT project explores several important questions: To what extent do policies pursued by EU member states to integrate immigrants, and policies pursued by governments and non-state actors in origin countries regarding expatriates, complement or contradict each other? What effective contribution do they make to the successful integration of migrants and what obstacles do they put in their way? A considerable amount of high-quality research on the integration of migrants has been produced in the EU. Building on existing research to investigate the impact of origin countries on the integration of migrants in the host country remains to be done. INTERACT is co-financed by the European Union and is implemented by a consortium built by CEDEM, UPF and MPI Europe. For more information: INTERACT Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (EUI) Villa Malafrasca Via Boccaccio 151 50133 Florence Italy Tel: +39 055 46 85 817/892 Fax: + 39 055 46 85 755 Email: [email protected] Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies http://www.eui.eu/RSCAS/ Abstract This report aims to present integration activities undertaken by state and non-state institutional actors at the national and local level in Poland. Up to now, the issue of immigrant integration in Poland has been neither a social nor a political problem, which can be explained in particular by the fact that foreigners constitute only a small portion of Polish society. A lack of interest in immigration by the wider public fosters the elaboration of integration-related policy in a more technocratic way, without pressure from politicians and the media. Despite the adoption of the strategic document “Poland’s Migration Policy – Current State of Play and Further Actions” by the Polish government in 2012 (supplemented by the action plan approved in 2014), Poland’s integration policy may still be regarded as not well-considered or developed. It is based largely on integration activities carried out by NGOs and is highly dependent on the availability of EU funds. Without this external funding, the majority of integration projects in Poland targeted at third country nationals, especially those not under international protection, could not be implemented. Key words: integration, integration policy, third country nationals, NGOs, Poland Table of contents 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 7 2. The political, legal and institutional framework of immigrant integration ......................................... 8 2.1 Strategic documents and legal acts dealing with the integration of immigrants ..................... 8 2.2 Institutions responsible for immigrant integration .................................................................. 9 3. Integration policy tools ...................................................................................................................... 12 3.1 Policy tools used before departure ........................................................................................ 12 3.2 Policy tools used in-country .................................................................................................. 13 3.3 Bilateral and multilateral international agreements .............................................................. 16 4. Integration policy at the local level ................................................................................................... 17 5. Engagement of non-state actors ........................................................................................................ 21 5.1 Integration initiatives undertaken by migrant associations ................................................... 22 5.2. Activities carried out by other ethnic institutions ................................................................ 24 6. Conclusions ....................................................................................................................................... 25 References ............................................................................................................................................. 26 INTERACT RR2015/07 1. Introduction The issue of immigrant integration in Poland – in contrast with Western European countries – is still not a social problem and is not politicised, which means that it rarely becomes a subject of public, media or political debates.1 This is particularly due to the fact that Poland has traditionally been a net emigration country and up to now – owing to a small scale of immigration – it has not even been recognised by most scholars as an “emerging immigration country” (Kraler and Iglicka 2002; Brücker and von Weizsäcker 2007; Fassmann et al. 2014). What is more, according to researchers, the transformation from an “emigration country” to an “immigration country” – which took place in the majority of European countries – cannot be taken for granted as an inevitable process in the case of Poland (Grabowska-Lusińska and Okólski 2009; Górny et al. 2010b). So far, emigration exceeds immigration and foreigners constitute only a small portion of Polish society: according to the estimate from the Ministry of the Interior, they account for only around 0.5 percent of the whole population (Ministry of the Interior 2014). The majority of migrants stay and work in Poland only temporarily (Kraler and Iglicka 2002; Górny et al. 2010a; Duszczyk and Góra 2012), which is currently possible mostly on the basis of a simplified procedure of employment for foreigners from the East: under this procedure, citizens of six countries – Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine – are allowed to work in Poland without a work permit for up to six months during twelve consecutive months on the basis of an employer’s declaration to hire a foreigner. In 2013, 235,616 such declarations were registered2 at local labour offices throughout the country (this number is on the rise); most of them (92%) were issued to Ukrainian migrant workers. In the light of the latest statistics released by the Office for Foreigners,