Poland’s opposition Conservatives (PiS) party has submitted a parliamentary bill aiming to restrict the eligibility of Ukrainian families for the country’s main child benefit programme.
The move on on January 21 was designed to ensure that only the children whose parents worked and payed taxes in Poland will qualify for the benefit.
The approximately €200 benefit paid for each child per month regardless of their parents’ income or wealth was, perhaps, the most popular policy PiS implemented during its last eight-year term in office (2015-2023).
That government was willing to have all Ukrainian refugees covered by the measure in the immediate aftermath of the Russian military invasion in 2022.
The PiS move came in the wake of Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski’s call for the centre-left Tusk administration to limit the eligibility of Ukrainian families to those who actively contribute to the Polish economy. Trzaskowski is the presidential candidate in May’s election for Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO) party.
“Benefits … should go to those who contribute to our economy. This is a fair and common-sense approach,” Trzaskowski said on January 17 during an election meeting in eastern Poland.
That remark was seen as an attempt by him to tilt to the Right in the election campaign. The Warsaw Mayor also argued that there was a need to avoid mistakes made in Western Europe that had made it “profitable for migrants” to come for benefits rather than to work.
According to Eurostat figures, there were nearly 1 million Ukrainians in Poland at the end of last year.
Data from the Polish state insurer (ZUS) showed that child benefit in the first half of 2024 was paid out to almost 250,000 children. That was down from more than 500,000 in 2022 because, in May 2024, the benefit became restricted to those whose children were attending Polish schools.
The PiS has openly admitted that it had tabled its bill to test whether Trzaskowski and Tusk were genuinely committed to the change or if the mayor’s remarks were merely election campaign rhetoric.
Mariusz Błaszczak, the leader of PiS’ parliamentary caucus, said the proposal reflected growing concerns among Poles that benefits were being abused.
“Rafał Trzaskowski has finally acknowledged what we have been saying for years: Welfare should support contributors to our society. Our bill ensures fairness for taxpayers,” he said.
Trzaskowski’s stance is being considered by Poland’s interior ministry, which on January 21 admitted it was looking to tighten up the child benefit rules. It also signalled that it was considering bringing forward legislative proposals of its own.
Some in the ruling centre-left coalition have voiced opposition to the Warsaw mayor’s remarks.
Speaker of Parliament Szymon Hołownia, who is also a presidential candidate and leader of the centrist Poland 2050 party, expressed doubt about altering the system.
“One could consider more thorough checks but I see no need for radical changes,” he told commercial news channel TVN24 on January 20.
He warned against penalising the vulnerable, such as Ukrainian single mothers fleeing war. “To deny support to those in desperate circumstances would be inhumane,” he said.
Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Poland has been one of Ukraine’s strongest allies, taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees.
But, of late, the two countries have been at loggerheads over issues such as the Ukrainian approach to honouring and exhuming the 100,000 Polish victims of the Volhynia massacre carried out by Ukrainian nationalists during the Second World War.
Ukrainian food imports reportedly adversely affecting Polish farmers has also become a point of contention.
