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The website for critical discussion about migration in Central and Eastern Europe.
13. 7. 04
Tadeusz Iwanski

Poland´s liberal visa regime is welcome by Ukrainians

Following a lengthy domestic discussion and bowing to pressure from the European Union, Poland introduced a visa requirement for the citizens of Ukraine in October 2003. In spite of being relatively liberal (visas are free of charge), the new visa regime had an impact on the number of persons crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border. In this article, Tadeusz Iwanski, a doctoral student at the Warsaw´s Graduate School of Social Research, looks at introducing of visa requirements and Poland?s current visa policy in the context of the EU after enlargement. The liberal visa regime reflects the state of Polish-Ukrainian relations as well as the interest that Polish foreign policy has in Ukraine as a part of Europe. It remains to be seen whether this regime can survive in the future in view of the high number of illegal Ukrainian workers in Western Europe. However, Iwanski is interested in more than visas: he also examines the impact of EU enlargement and issues related to future relations between Ukraine on one hand and Europe and Russia on the other. He voices fears of intellectuals from Western Ukraine who believe that Ukraine will be isolated in the new European Union and that a new Iron Curtain has been created. Ukrainian politicians sometimes speak on the subject of enlargement: president Kuchma, who said ?Nobody wants us in Europe,? uses EU enlargement as an argument for Ukraine to look northward, toward Russia, and not westward, to the EU.
13. 7. 04

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