European Refugee Crisis:the Case Of Poland

This thesis uses descriptive case study research method to investigate challenges faced by Polish society and political parties in resolving the European refugee crisis.Researcher underlined that the specifics of modern political processes are largely determined by migration flows from zones of armed conflicts and countries with an unfavorable political and socio-economic situation to more prosperous countries and regions.Thus the migration,which in recent years has acquired a massive multi-million character,is one of the most significant phenomena of contemporary political reality.Conducting the research on the main political,social and humanitarian risks caused by refugee crisis for Polish society,researcher used a combination of both secondary and primary sources.The instruments used for collecting primary data were questionnaires,online surveys and information learned from Polish think tanks.The questionnaires were administered to think-tanks of five voivodeships in Ukrainian-Polish border-Lublin;Subcarpathian;Podlaskie;Lesser Poland;Masovian,which provided the data about challenges caused by refugee crisis faced by Polish society in these areas.Overall a total of 215 respondents were included in the study.Secondary data were obtained from different sources including the library,internet,government institutions as well as International Organization for Migration and Non-Governmental organization focusing on migrants' affairs.The main idea of the research is to analyze the potential of the system of Polish and European security in the context of emerging new threats in the form of a migration crisis,to identify the problems of its provision on the European continent and to determine the role and place of diplomacy in it.Analyzing main geopolitical,social and humanitarian aspects of the refugee crisis,researcher emphasized that initially focused on providing assistance to migrants and refugees,the EU has faced a whole range of social,economic and humanitarian problems,among which there are such as the ignoring and devaluation of European values by migrants,directly escalating tension and conflicts.All these factors determine the crisis in the development of the situation in European countries,undermine their social,humanitarian,economic and political foundations.The researcher studied in details Polish migration policy,its' main problems and priority areas.In research it was noted that during 1991-2018 the tendency of Poland's strengthening of its protection position,migration and security policy was traced.The study utilized main ideas of National Security Strategy of the Republic of Poland and the EU,economic migration theories and methodology to answer the research question.The findings of the study show that nowadays moving away from pan-European standards,Poland,along with other countries in Eastern Europe,is taking steps to meet the preservation of national identity,controlling the influx of refugees into its territory.However,the study notes that given the fact that the situation in the donor countries still has the character of armed confrontation,there are reasons to believe that in the near future the migration crisis will continue to escalate,which can lead to disastrous consequences for a number of European countries.The study of the problem of resolving the refugee crisis with the help of both European,Polish tools and efforts of NGOs showed that the lack of coordinated actions of the EU is pushing individual countries to resolve the issue independently,rather than jointly.The findings indicate that countries stand up for the principle of sovereignty and security of their territories,conducting a policy of protectionism and protection of state borders.Such measures do not contribute to the solution of the migration crisis,and also violate the ideals on which the EU was built,undermining the principle of European unity,creating a threat of a split in the union.The thesis ended by giving several policy recommendations that can help to reduce the threats caused by the refugee crisis both for individual EU member states and for the EU as a whole.