Polish cities feel pressure to help Ukrainian refugees – POLITICO

This article is part of by POLITICO Global Policy Lab: Living Cities, a collaborative journalism project exploring the future of cities. Chapter 1 of the project is presented by AirBnB.

RZESZÓW, Poland — Rzeszów has taken in more than 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, increasing its population by more than half. But with no end in sight to the conflict, the Polish city must now figure out how to accommodate these newcomers in the long term.

Since Russian tanks first entered Ukraine, around 1 million people have passed through the southeastern city, which is just 100 kilometers from the border.

First stopover for most Ukrainians fleeing the war, it goes into emergency mode: volunteers welcome refugees at the station with a hot meal; local authorities turned sports complexes into humanitarian aid warehouses and the local shopping center became a shelter.

Elżbieta Sobusiak, co-owner of a small private daycare centre, said she was approached by so many Ukrainian parents that she started a new group – with a Ukrainian nanny – to look after their young children.

“Thanks to enormous efforts, the city… did not collapse, there was no drama, no [refugee] camps, everything was under control,” Rzeszów Mayor Konrad Fijołek told POLITICO.

Now that the sense of urgency has passed, the city faces a new challenge: how to integrate those who have decided to stay.

While many refugees have since moved to other cities in Poland or elsewhere in the EU, or decided to return to Ukraine, those who are still in Rzeszów has added pressure to an already tight housing market and tight local budgets.

Rzeszów is an extreme example of a challenge facing cities across the country. Of the 3.2 million Ukrainians who fled to Poland, 2.2 million live in cities, according to a report by the Union of Polish Metropolises published last month. The population of the Polish capital, Warsaw, increased by 15%; in Krakow, it increased by 23%; in Gdańsk by 34%.

A recent survey by ARC Rynek i Opinia, an independent pollster, found that 58% of Ukrainians in Poland say they intend to stay as long as the war continues, while 27% say they plan to stay for good.

This means local governments must come up with long-term strategies to integrate their newcomers, including massively expanding schools and creating new jobs, said Marek Wójcik, a regulatory expert at the Association of Polish Towns.

“At the beginning, it was about ensuring basic security: aid, food, clothes, apartments,” he said. “But now we have moved on to the second phase.”

Capacity crisis

Thanks to a emergency mechanism triggered by the EU, Ukrainian refugees can legally live and work across the bloc. They are also entitled to the same benefits as Polish citizens: health insurance, free public education, family allowances.

At the local level, Fijołek said his goal is to provide refugees with jobs, access to education and longer-term housing.

Most Ukrainian students complete their school year remotely, but if they stay in Poland, they will need to integrate into the Polish system and learn the language. This means bigger classes and more teachers.

“We can hold out until the end of [this] the school year… but then we will need concrete action,” said Fijołek.

Wójcik, from the Association of Polish Cities, said other Polish municipalities face similar problems.

“There are cities where there are so many new children that a few or a dozen new schools and kindergartens need to be built,” he said.

In Warsaw, home to around 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, “if all Ukrainian children want to learn [in person]then we would need four times as much infrastructure as we have today for young refugees,” Wójcik said.

The other looming problem is housing. Throughout the country, Poles have welcomed approximately 700,000 refugees in their own homes, and many refugees live in temporary shared accommodation.

But these short-term solutions mask a deeper problem: the rental market in most Polish cities is saturated – demand is already outstripping supply and prices are rising.

In Rzeszów, every rental property is currently occupied, according to Fijołek: “We are full”.

Money problems

Polish mayors are quick to say they need more money to adjust to their new reality.

Wójcik said his association had spoken to EU officials and experts who wanted to give advice to cities and “tell us how to help in such situations”. But expertise is only part of the equation, he stressed: “We just need [financial] means that we could take responsibility for helping refugees.

During the first month of the war, the Polish government set up an emergency fund of 500 million złoty (109 million euros) to help local authorities.

That support hasn’t made much difference yet, Fijołek said in early May, because it’s only slowly starting to flow.

“We’ll see if we get that money: for schools, for social assistance, for building new infrastructure, for transport, for houses. It is a real test that awaits us,” he added.

But Warsaw is struggling to find new funds to cover these additional costs – and it is looking to the EU for help.

So far, Brussels has allocated 144.6 million euros to Poland as part of a new fund to help the countries most affected by the refugee crisis. Brussels also said Poland could tap €1.2 billion of unused REACT EU funds, part of the bloc’s post-pandemic recovery aid, and use parts of its cohesion funding for recovery policies. support for Ukrainian refugees.

According to Paweł Szefernaker, Polish minister in charge of aid to Ukraine, this is “insufficient”.

“From the outset, we said that the aid we provide translates into billions, not millions of euros. EU aid to countries helping refugees is also expected to amount to billions of euros,” he told Polish media Last week.

On Wednesday, the European Commission approved Poland’s national recovery plan, under which the country can receive around 24 billion euros in grants and 12 billion euros in ultra-cheap loans. The move – which some commissioners say is premature amid an ongoing dispute over the rule of law in Poland – is expected to boost Warsaw’s ability to respond to the influx of Ukrainian refugees. The deal requires the government to meet certain “milestones”, including the rule of law, before it can access the money.

Some local politicians – including Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw – have called on the EU to send funds directly to regional authorities rather than the national government.

“Money is essential and not only money that is already in Poland, but also new money, new money,” he told reporters in Brussels last week after of a meeting with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “It is very important that European money not only goes to central government but also to support local authorities, to support NGOs.

If sending money to cities proves impossible, he added, the Commission should establish strict criteria on how the funds it provides to Poland should be allocated to ensure that they are not misused.

Such support is urgently needed, according to Wójcik. “We would be very grateful if in the European structures this was noticed, for real.”

This article is part of by POLITICO Global Policy Lab: Living Cities. Chapter 1 of the project is presented by AirBnB. The article is produced with complete editorial independence by POLITICO journalists and editors. Learn more on editorial content presented by external advertisers. You can sign up for Living Cities here.