Factors Influencing Immigration to Poland As an EU Member State

The European Commission has lately been exposed to increasing pressure from the Italian and Greek Governments to actively participate in solving the problem of growing immigration from African and Middle East countries. This surging pressure has resulted in actions aimed at redistributing immigrants among the EU Member States. The implementation of this solution would mean that the immigration issue is most likely to also affect countries which have not had to deal with large immigrant populations in the past. This article focuses on potential immigration to Poland, as one the largest economies in the EU Member States. It aims to answer the question whether Poland needs and is ready, in social, economic and cultural terms, to accept international immigrants from developing countries. Another problem tackled by this paper is the European Union’s attitude towards immigration. It is argued that the redistribution of migrants will be pointless unless other accompanying actions are taken simultaneously. The twin issues of the immigration crisis and the distribution of immigrants have revealed problems resulting from differences between the Member States in terms of their quality of life, including differences in wages and social benefits. This article posits that had the EU met the cohesion goal many economic and social problems, including migrants’ distribution, would not have arisen.