This brief paper looks into four important aspects of mobility between Belarus and Poland. These are short-term travel for non-employment matters, temporary labour migration, long-term travel arrangements including the Polish Cards, and the present state of art with a bilateral local border traffic regime.
In the last three years, a clear upward trend in temporary labour mobility from Belarus to Poland is observed. In 2016, the number of registered statements for Belarusian temporary migrants by Polish employers under the simplified work scheme stood at 23,400, compared to 5,599 in 2015. Furthermore, in the first half 2017 the number of invitations reached 24,216.
Most popular spheres of employment among Belarusians are transport and storage (26%), administrative services (23%) and construction (21%). The overwhelming majority of Belarusian migrant workers in Poland are males under 40. Although Russia remains the predominantly preferred destination country for Belarusian labour migrants, in the last years the cost benefit balance for a part of Belarusian labourers shifted to Poland due to economic stagnation in Russia.
Polish Cards have become an important tool of Poland’s soft power among Belarusian population. By August 2017, the number of Polish Cards issued in Belarus exceeded 100,000. In the past two years, Poland substantially facilitated acquisition of a Polish citizenship by Polish Card holders and directed financial assistance to the Polish Card holders who apply for a permanent residence in Poland as well as to their spouses and children. However, as a consequence of the latest amendments into the Act on Polish Card requiring that the applicant’s ancestors had a Polish ethnicity not merely citizenship, numbers of applications for Polish Cards in Belarus will likely decrease in the coming years.
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