Warsaw obliges Ukrainian refugees to pay for their own accommodation in residence centers in Poland from March 1. The publication wrote about it Interia.
“There are more than 1 million refugees from Ukraine in Poland. The new rules for paying for accommodation in places of collective living apply to 80 thousand people, since there are so many people living there. Similar laws have been in force since June for those who lived in Polish families,” Pavel Shefernaker, Deputy Minister of the Interior, Plenipotentiary Representative of the Government for Refugees from Ukraine, told the publication.
The article notes that Ukrainian refugees were surprised by the new rules, although the Polish government warned about their introduction back in September 2022. Citizens of Ukraine regarded the measure as hypothetical.
According to Schaefernaker, the new rules are necessary in order to force refugees to look for work and spend less time in places of collective residence.
He also pointed out that the new law provides for a number of exceptions. For example, the measures will not apply to those who depend on outside assistance, in particular, minors, persons with disabilities, people of retirement age, pregnant women and parents raising children under the age of one year.
“Mothers or other guardians who independently care for three or more minor children in Poland should also not pay,” the article says.
The authors of the material emphasized that some Ukrainians who have already found work will still be forced to leave Poland back to their homeland due to lack of money.
As follows from the results of a survey published on February 16 by the Openfield research group, the level of approval for accepting refugees from Ukraine in Poland is falling significantly. Now it is 67% – the lowest result for the year. The highest figure was in March 2022 – 88% and in May – 79%. The number of respondents who are confident in Ukraine’s ability to resist the Russian Federation is also decreasing. If in the autumn 43.2% believed in it, now there are 37.5%.
On February 2, naTemat noted that anti-Ukrainian billboards appeared in the Polish city of Czestochowa. The material says that in the near future such billboards may appear throughout the country.
According to a member of the Federation Council Alexei Pushkov, the “fabric of solidarity” will thin out over time and the attitude towards refugees in Poland will become even worse. In addition, he said that the very integration of Ukrainians into the European space, one way or another, “will become a process saturated with difficulties.”
