Poland’s president has vetoed legislation to prolong benefits received by Ukrainian refugees in Poland, following up on a campaign promise to tighten welfare payments amid a steady growth in anti-Ukrainian sentiment among Poles.
Karol Nawrocki, who took office earlier this month after winning an election in spring, said only Ukrainians in work should receive child benefit payments.
“We remain open to providing assistance to Ukrainian citizens – that hasn’t changed,” said Nawrocki in a statement. “But after three and a half years, our law should be amended.”
Nawrocki vetoed a bill that would have extended the current system of payments, due to expire in September, until March 2026. About 1 million refugees are believed to have settled in Poland since 2022, the majority of them women and children.
The prime minister, Donald Tusk, criticised the veto, as did others in his government. “We cannot punish people for losing their job – particularly not innocent children. This is the ABC of human decency,” the labour minister, Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, wrote on X. The child benefit payments are 800 złoty (£162) a month.
“President Nawrocki does not agree to the privileged treatment of citizens of other countries,” said a statement released by his office. “That is why he has decided to veto the bill on assistance for Ukrainian citizens in its current form and will present his own legal proposals.”
The government and president are stuck in a legislative deadlock. Tusk had hoped that his political ally Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, would win the presidential election, but the rightwing Nawrocki won a tight contest, meaning he can veto government legislation. The government can also veto presidential proposals.
The deputy prime minister and digital affairs minister, Krzysztof Gawkowski, claimed that by vetoing the legislation, Nawrocki also put at risk Poland’s continued funding of Starlink satellite internet for Ukraine. “This is the end of Starlink internet, which Poland provides to Ukraine as it wages war,” he wrote on X. A spokesperson for Nawrocki told Reuters that Starlink payments could continue if parliament adopted a proposed presidential bill by the end of September.
Poland was one of the most welcoming countries in Europe to Ukrainians in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, with millions of Poles volunteering to help at the border, donating to charitable causes or opening their homes to refugees.
As time has gone on, anti-Ukrainian sentiment has been slowly increasing, despite studies showing that the influx of Ukrainians has benefited the Polish economy. A study by Poland’s National Development Bank this year found that Ukrainians had contributed more in taxes than they had received in benefits, and found that their labour was crucial for economic stability.
The resentment has been fuelled by politicians looking to score points. Trzaskowski, the liberal presidential challenger, first called for tightening the rules for Ukrainians to access benefits during his failed election campaign. Back then, his proposed measures were supported by Tusk.
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Historical issues are also a frequent point of friction in Warsaw, with many in Poland angry over glorification in Ukraine of a wartime nationalist movement that was responsible for massacres of Jews and Poles.
Nawrocki said on Monday he wanted to make amendments to the Polish criminal code to equate the promotion of the Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera with the promotion of Nazism and Soviet communism, banned under Polish law.
Bartosz Cichocki, who was Poland’s ambassador to Ukraine until 2023, said current public attitudes were somewhat inevitable after the large numbers of Ukrainians who have made Poland their temporary home.
“After the euphoric solidarity in 2022, the climax of social and political support, there had to be some sort of swing to the other side. We are now in this other extreme. I believe at some point this will calm down and we will reach a balanced approach,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
