Why poles leave poland

After two-and-a-half years, Greber and her daughter returned to Poland, where she resumed work as a nurse. But that only went well for about six months. And it was very hard to survive on my pay. When the project finishes, she plans to go back to her profession. Still, she wonders if she will ever be able to lead a dignified life in Poland with the little money she will earn as a nurse.

Malgorzata is an exception. Most nurses who go abroad never return. And if they do, they rarely seek employment in the state health-care system. Read more: The plight of Germany's foreign careworkers. Teresa worked in hospitals in western Poland for 15 years.

When her children were aged 14 and 15 she began traveling to Germany for work. At that point, her marriage was already over because her husband had found someone else in England, where he was working as a laborer. Her teenage children lived with her parents, and things were not going well there, either. Teresa decided to return home. She was shocked when she went back to her old hospital.

Most of her colleagues had left the country and were working in England, Germany or Norway. We had so much work that I was constantly having to decide whether I should feed one patient or take another to the bathroom. And if, who first? It was humiliating, both for me and for the patients," says Teresa. Now Teresa is caring for an elderly man near Kiel, in Germany.

But she says that after two months of work she needs two months off in Poland to regain her strength. I am utterly exhausted after two months. There are enough women from Romania and Ukraine who are willing to put up with such conditions, says Teresa.

Read more: Germany to recruit more elderly care workers abroad. Since Poland joined the EU in , some 20, trained nurses have left the country, mainly to work as caregivers. Today there are , nurses in Poland; only 42, of them are under the age of The average age is Last month Mr Suski talked about fighting the "Brussels occupier" and Mr Terlecki said the UK had shown that "the dictatorship of the Brussels bureaucracy" could be defeated by leaving. Mr Terlecki, who is head of the ruling PiS party's parliamentary caucus, insisted Poland wanted to remain but said "drastic solutions" would have to be sought if the conflict was not resolved.

Perhaps the party is preparing the ground for an eventual exit once Poland has to pay more money into the EU budget than it takes out. Maybe it's playing hardball to try to get the best possible compromise with Brussels. Negotiations are ongoing and some suggest the government is using the ruling as leverage to get the plan agreed. The ruling does not take effect until it is published.

Although the government is legally obliged to do so, it has failed to publish rulings in the past. Jacek Karnowski, editor-in-chief of the pro-government Sieci weekly, told the BBC that Polexit was "unimaginable and unrealistic", although he said the topic was now a matter of discussion. Poland, like the UK, was a proud independent nation, he said, but "much weaker, unhappily".

The PiS mainstream believed Poland must defend its sovereignty and not be treated as a second-class member, he said. He sees Brussels as the aggressor, overstepping its powers and inventing new tools to constrain Poland to roll back the reforms. Thursday's ruling was decided in some sense by the EU's position," he said. He has refused to implement two rulings made in July by the EU's Court of Justice, which accused the Polish government of political interference in the judiciary.

The prime minister has denied such interference and said Monday that Poland is not seeking an exit from the EU. Government supporters have staged counterprotests and say the government was right to challenge the EU. The EU has threatened to withhold the money unless Poland implements the changes to its judicial system. Poland and some other member states, including Hungary, have repeatedly clashed with the EU over the rule of law, media freedom and minority rights.

Those foundations have been shaken by the Polish ruling. European officials say the bloc must stand by its core principles, but so far, the Polish government shows little sign of changing course. Search Search. Home United States U. Latest show. VOA Africa Listen live.