Ambassador of Ukraine to the Republic of Poland Andriy Deschytsia says that about 1.5 million Ukrainians work in Poland today and about 50,000 Ukrainian students are studying.
“What is the situation in Poland now. We have an increase in the number of labour migrants. If we talk in comparison with 2014, this is approximately two or three times. Now we are talking about 1.5 million Ukrainians who work in Poland,” he said at the Ukraine 30. Human Capital all-Ukrainian forum on Tuesday.
He said that approximately 600,000 Ukrainians officially pay taxes to the Social Insurance Fund, while the rest work on labour contracts and do not pay taxes.
In addition, the ambassador said that in 2014 there were 680 companies in Poland, where owners were Ukrainians, and in 2021 there were 16,000 enterprises in Poland where the owners or co-owners are Ukrainians.
Among other things, Deschytsa said that at the moment about 50,000 Ukrainian students are studying in Poland.
Ukraine International Airlines (UIA, Kyiv) has suspended the resumption of flights between Ukraine and Poland (Kyiv-Warsaw-Kyiv), which was planned for June 18.
According to the company’s website, the reason for this decision was the situation that arose in connection with the need to fly around the territory of Belarus and the subsequent redistribution of passenger traffic observed by the airline in this direction.
“UIA will carefully analyze the market for both point to point passengers traveling to/from Poland and passengers traveling with a transfer in Poland or Ukraine. In the event of a recovery in demand for the UIA network, the flights will be resumed,” the report says.
Currently, flights from Kyiv to Warsaw are also operated by Wizz Air, Ryanair and LOT.
Deputy Head of the President’s Office of Ukraine Ihor Zhovkva announced the forthcoming reconstruction of key checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Polish state border due to the inclusion of the border infrastructure between Ukraine and Poland in the Big Construction program.
“Key checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Polish state border are included in the Big Construction national program, which means that they will be reconstructed, and access roads will finished so that our presidents can soon jointly examine the results of this work,” Zhovkva said, following the results of the Consulting Committee of the Presidents of Ukraine and Poland meeting via videoconference with Secretary of State of the President’s Office of Poland Krzysztof Szczerski on Monday, March 29.
A separate item on the meeting’s agenda was the discussion of trade and economic cooperation between Ukraine and Poland. The sides said that “coronavirus pandemic had practically no effect on the volume of trade between the two states.”
When discussing energy issues, the interlocutors noted the exceptional importance of ensuring energy security in Europe and coordinated joint steps to oppose the completion of the Nord Stream 2 project.
The sides also discussed the implementation of joint initiatives in the energy sector, in particular, on the supply of liquefied gas from Qatar to Ukraine through the Polish infrastructure.
In the context of the discussion of Ukraine’s relations with the EU and NATO, the Secretary of State of the President’s Office of Poland assured of Poland’s consistent support for Ukraine’s European and Euro-Atlantic prospects. He positively noted the results of the reforms that our state is introducing in order to achieve the relevant criteria for membership.
