Media reports suggest Poland’s consular sections issued about 250,000 visas to migrants from Asia and Africa since 2021 in return for bribes.
Poland’s conservative government has been rocked by reports that consulates issued visas in Africa and Asia in exchange for bribes, opening the door for migrants to enter the European Union.
Law and Justice has been the election frontrunner in a field of several parties and it is not clear if the affair will dent its support. “This is the biggest scandal we have faced in the 21st century. Corruption at the highest levels of government, bringing a direct threat to all of us. And it’s because of people whose mouths are full of phrases about security,” Senate Speaker Tomasz Grodzki, an opposition politician, said in a televised address to the nation on Friday evening.
Poland is a member of the EU’s visa-free zone known as Schengen and once those migrants arrived in Poland they could cross Europe’s borders freely. That followed the August 31 dismissal of Piotr Wawrzyk, the deputy foreign minister in charge of consular matters, as the first reports of the scandal appeared in the media.The state prosecutor’s office said on Thursday it has charged seven people suspected of corrupt activities in accelerating visa procedures, with three of them under temporary arrest.
He said Mr Wawrzyk had written a farewell letter saying he wanted to die because he could not bear the hatred against him in the media. “He feels like a man hounded by this hate, because he feels like an honest man,” Mr Ziobro said.
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