Poland is cocking up migration in a very European way

FOR A GLIMPSE of how immigration is changing Poland, head to Hala Koszyki, an Instagram-friendly food hall in the middle of Warsaw. Take an Uber and there is a good chance the driver will be from Belarus. Inside, Ukrainian waiters and chefs toil over sushi and tapas. Outside, straddling their scooters, a group of UberEats riders from India and elsewhere in South Asia wait to take orders from any Varsovians who fancy a night in.

Poland, one of the EU’s most homogenous countries, is becoming a country of immigration. It took in more workers from outside the EU in 2018 than any other country—nearly five times more than Germany—and is likely to have repeated the trick again in 2019. Nearly 2m Ukrainians have arrived since 2014, pushed by a ropy national economy and a war in the country’s east, and pulled by higher wages in Poland. They are not alone. In the past three years 36,000 Nepalese, 20,000 Indians and 18,000 Bangladeshis have moved to Poland. It is a big shift: Poland, a country of 38m inhabitants, had only 100,000 foreigners of any stripe in 2011. Migration is seen as a political faultline in the EU, with an open west set against a closed east. Yet Poland is, quietly, starting to look more like its peers in western Europe.