During the meeting in Podlasie, Donald Tusk said how he would like to help Poles return from emigration. He also cited a story about when he was in a similar situation and worked abroad – in Germany he earned eight marks an hour.
On Thursday in Kleosin (Podlaskie Voivodeship), as part of the KO “Here is the Future” campaign, a meeting was held with the chairman of the Civic Platform Donald Tuskwho was asked if he wanted to facilitate the return of Poles to Poland who went abroad “for bread”.
Tusk about work in Germany
Tusk said that in 2007 “the problem of migration was one of the biggest social problems”. It was also a family drama. On the one hand, we fought to be in the European Union, so that there would be no borders, no visas, so that labor markets would be open. As a young man in the 1980s, I had the opportunity to work not only as a laborer on these chimneys in Poland, but also in Norway beyond the Arctic Circle, I was a construction carpenter. I also worked in a small apple juice factory in Germany Of course, you know that, he said.
He also added: – I still vividly remember the time when getting a passport was a miracle, getting a job was not so easy. At the end, when I got 8 marks per hour, and I had to pay for food, some place to sleep, after a great trip it turned out that I could buy such a small color TV, the first in my and my wife’s life.
The PO leader pointed out that often the main reason for going abroad is “lack of hope”. – Not necessarily work, but it is often a crossroads of different dilemmas. There is no apartment, or the job is not like that, or I live in an excluded town – he said.
In his opinion, “you don’t have to discover America, but you have to invest as much money as understanding” so that not only Poles abroad, but also “those who enter adult life believe that there is some sense here”, that “there is a future here” . “They have to believe that by staying here they grow, that their hopes grow, their dreams come true, they earn more money, they are respected,” he stressed.
Main photo source: PAP/Artur Reszko