Poland does not have much experience with accommodating foreigners, nor with their integration. For decades, it was a country of emigrants, with relatively high numbers of foreigners beginning to settle there after the collapse of the communist system and after Poland’s accession to the European Union, but these were no mass movements. It is only since 2014 that a sharp increase in migration to Poland has occurred, the main reason being the eruption of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Migration has also been driven by the upturn in the Polish economy, as well as relatively liberal regulations on the foreigners’ access to the labour market.
Since 2015, political changes regarding the approach to migration, especially forced migrants, have also been introduced. Migration has become a political issue since the debate on how to solve the socalled refugee crisis coincided with the campaign for parliamentary elections in Poland in 2015. The government announced it would develop a new migration policy.
