Poland’s conservative government is well-known as one of the most supportive of Ukraine in the ongoing war with Russia, and the country has had a history of taking in millions of Ukrainian refugees both before and since the war started in 2022.
However, despite the government’s support for Ukrainians, some Polish people may be tired of the war and the benefits Ukrainian refugees receive from the Polish state, according to one Polish academic.
Professor Henryk Domanski, a sociologist from the Polish Academy of Sciences, attributed the rising criticism of Ukrainians in Poland to the surge in support of the populist economically liberal party Confederation Liberty and Independence (Konfederacja), which enjoys the support of 14% of Poles according to recent polls.
Speaking to the news portal wPolityce, Professor Domanski stated, “A large part of Polish society has a negative attitude towards the benefits that Ukrainians in Poland receive from the Polish state.”
He went on to add that some Poles believe the Ukrainian benefits come at the expense of the Polish people. The Confederation party has been publicly critical of Ukrainians and what they have termed their “privileged position” in Poland.
Domanski also noted that the surge in polling for the Confederation comes almost totally at the expense of the ruling conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) and claimed it was unlikely the party would reach out to form a possible coalition with the PiS going forward.
“What could the Confederation gain by entering into a coalition with Law and Justice, which is the most likely? It could be influencing the actions of PiS, but then it would have to make compromises, for example on the issue of attitude towards Ukrainians. Then they would immediately lose support from 14% to the 7-8% they had from time to time,” he said.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, a member of PiS, has been a staunch supporter of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the war with Russia and has even criticised fellow European Union members and NATO allies for not doing enough to help Ukraine.
Earlier this year the Polish leader criticised Germany and France over their commitment to Ukrainian victory saying, “Germany and France would want Ukraine to win, I have no doubts about this, but to what extent they want to have this victory of Ukraine and to what extent they are able to engage their money, their weapons, their diplomacy to support Ukraine, I’m not sure.”
Morawiecki has also claimed that if Ukraine were to lose the war, the results would be devastating for the West, and told American lawmakers, “Defeat of Ukraine would mean the defeat of the West, and such a defeat would be bigger than Vietnam.”
Poland has seen millions of Ukrainians cross its borders since the start of the war, with nearly a million Ukrainians currently living in the country, according to statistics from the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR.
Poland has been concerned with the costs of housing the refugees and announced late last year that it would be charging Ukrianians for beds in shared accommodation centres around €10 per day in order to offset costs, which would affect around 80,000 people.
In March, the government made further cuts to Ukrainian refugee spending, by cutting the funding in half, though they still have free access to healthcare, child subsidies, and public transport.
The European Union has given Poland millions of euros to help ease the costs but some projections claim that the government spent as much as €8.36 billion on Ukrainian refugees in 2022.
Poland faces a national election later this autumn, although no official date has been set so far. A poll released last week reveals that PiS has just 33.4% of support nationally, calling into question whether or not PiS can continue to govern as an election result along those numbers would not give the party a majority of seats in the Polish parliament, the Sejm.
