BERLIN (AP) — German authorities officers held talks Tuesday with their Polish counterparts asking them to make clear the variety of visas issued in an unlawful program during which some Polish consulates issued visas in Africa and Asia in trade for bribes, an official mentioned.
Poland was She was shaken for weeks by the reports Its consular departments have issued about 250,000 visas to immigrants from Asia and Africa since 2021 in trade for bribes amounting to a number of thousand {dollars} every. Poland is a member of the EU’s visa-free zone generally known as Schengen, and as soon as these migrants arrive in Poland, they will freely cross Europe’s borders – together with into neighboring Germany.
Warsaw’s conservative authorities confirms that some violations occurred, and the authorities carried out some arrests and dismissals, but it surely insists that the size will not be as massive because the Polish media reported.
German Inside Minister Nancy Wieser spoke by telephone together with her Polish counterpart Mariusz Kaminski Tuesday afternoon, whereas Polish Ambassador Darius Paulus was invited to talk with State Minister Bernd Kroeser on the Inside Ministry in Berlin, a authorities official advised The Related Press.
German officers requested their Polish counterparts to offer details about the timing and variety of visas issued, in addition to the nationalities of the visa beneficiaries. The German authorities official mentioned Polish officers have been knowledgeable that the German authorities expects to resolve critical allegations concerning doable visa fraud. German officers additionally questioned the countermeasures taken by the Warsaw authorities.
The official, who spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of delicate nature of the case, famous that the German Federal Police had considerably strengthened border police procedures on the German border, particularly on the German-Polish border, as a result of present immigration state of affairs. . Nevertheless, the current enhance in Border Patrol actions occurred earlier than experiences of the alleged visa rip-off turned public and was circuitously associated to it.
Particulars of the corruption scandal got here to mild in Poland a month earlier than the nation’s parliamentary elections on October 15, leaving the ruling Regulation and Justice get together scuffling with harm management domestically.
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Vanessa Gera reported from Warsaw, Poland.
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Observe AP’s international migration protection on https://apnews.com/hub/migration