Polish president calls for end to special status of Ukrainian refugees as public opinion hardens

Polish President Karol Nawrocki pledged on Friday not to sign any further laws extending the special status enjoyed by Ukrainian refugees living in Poland after current legislation expires in March, Polish online news outlet Interia reported, amid a recent period of tension between Warsaw and Kyiv. 

The Polish government has allowed Ukrainian refugees broad access to the country’s labour market, health care, education and welfare systems since 2022, but their preferential status has become an increasingly controversial one since the right-wing Nawrocki’s inauguration as president in August. 

Having signed a bill extending special measures for Ukrainians in September, Nawrocki said his country should stop adopting legislation that he described as “unfair to Poles,” and treat Ukrainians “like any other minority” in the country, a reference to the national minority status accorded to Poland’s long-established ethnic Ukrainian population.

“Let me stress, and I hope the prime minister and the parliamentary majority are listening, that this is the last I will sign a bill on assistance to Ukrainians,” Nawrocki said at a rally celebrating his first 100 days in power.

Nawrocki, who narrowly won Poland’s presidential elections in May against a liberal candidate backed by Kyiv-friendly Prime Minister Donald Tusk, has been a consistent critic of Ukraine’s efforts to secure NATO and EU membership. 

At the start of November, Nawrocki accused Kyiv of a “lack of gratitude” towards Warsaw for its support and condemned the “flooding” of Poland’s agricultural market with Ukrainian produce. 

“Helping Ukraine and taking a clear stance on whom we support in this conflict does not relieve me, as Poland’s president, of the responsibility to insist that Poland’s own issues be addressed in our relations with Ukraine,” Nawrocki said.

This week, Nawrocki formally invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to visit Warsaw and called on him to “thank Poles for what they have done over the past three years to help Ukraine”. 

On Tuesday, as Poland marked its Independence Day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky extended his congratulations to Warsaw and voiced his country’s “deep appreciation” for the support provided by Poland since 2022.

Poland, which the European Commission says currently hosts about 1 million Ukrainians, has seen popular support for its neighbor drop substantially since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

An October poll by Warsaw-based pollster CBOS found that only 48% of Poles currently support accepting Ukrainian refugees, down from 94% in March 2022, with half of those polled agreeing that the Polish state is too generous toward Ukrainians.

Poland’s commissioner for human rights, meanwhile, has observed a “growing number of acts of discrimination and hate speech” towards Ukrainians in Poland, Bloomberg reported last week.