POLAND: "We are helping Ukrainian entrepreneurs move away from the ruins and recreate their businesses"

Tomasz Wróblewski, EESC member, Poland

When this war is over, Europe will no longer be defined by the experiences of the Second World War or the Cold War, but by everything that is happening today in Ukraine and its consequences, which cannot yet be predicted. What we will go through and the lessons we will learn will change most of our perceptions of the world.  

For Poland, this will forever be a nation-building moment. What we have learned about the fragility of the world by watching millions of people flee from evil, but also what we have learned about ourselves through hosting hundreds of thousands of foreign people in our homes, will leave its mark for years to come.

We sometimes speak about the Ukrainisation of Poland, a spiritual transformation of these two countries.
 2.7 million people who have come to our country have found housing, help and places for their children in schools and kindergartens.

Everyone I know and people I meet on the street or in shops are doing something to help. Each in their own way. The bravest are transporting medication and bulletproof vests to Ukraine. Others spend all their free time helping immigrants fill in documents, open bank accounts or look for work. Those at the border spend all day welcoming refugees, who are crossing our border in increasing numbers.

They cook, find them lifts to other cities or countries, distribute hundreds of thousands of donations – blankets, backpacks, teddy bears for the kids. All of this is coming to the border from around the world.

What we can do as members of an organisation of entrepreneurs is help where we can contribute most. We are helping Ukrainian entrepreneurs recreate their businesses in Poland. Moving them away from factories, shops, clinics or beauty salons that lie in ruins and giving people – many of whom have been left without a home, without means to make a living and without their loved ones – a job in Poland.

 In the centre of Warsaw, there is an office for Ukrainian entrepreneurs' organisations. Besides office space and administrative support, we are helping them find space for companies that decide to rebuild their businesses in Poland. We started with renting tens of thousands of square metres of production space. Thanks to the generosity of Polish companies in the industrial part of Warsaw, Ukrainian entrepreneurs can receive space free of charge. They only pay for water and rubbish collection.

After almost two months of this refugee crisis, not one refugee camp, or any other place where human dignity and safety would be at risk, has been created in Poland.

Ukraine is entering a new stage of the war, but so is Poland. We want to give the people who have found a safe haven here their lives back. We can't give them back their country, but at least by giving them jobs we can give them back some sense of normality.