Poland is strengthening the rules for issuing visas, there will no longer be opaque ways to speed up the process of obtaining them in the future, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said.
Earlier, the Poland Business Harbour program was suspended, which was mainly aimed at self-employed people in the IT sector from Belarus.
The rules for issuing visas for humanitarian reasons are also being reviewed, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski was quoted as saying by the DPA news agency.
The minister said that with this step, the country draws a line under the corrupt practice in issuing visas that existed under the previous government of the conservative nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS), which ruled the country from 2015 to 2023.
The report of the Supreme Control Chamber (SCC), published on Thursday, confirmed media reports that appeared last fall that Polish consulates during the PiS rule in Asia and Africa issued visas in exchange for large sums.
Thus, during the inspection, the SCC revealed almost 50 violations related to the visa issuance mechanism during the coalition of right-wing forces in power in the country, Radoslaw Sikorski said.
