brexit – Five to Europe https://fivetoeurope.com The Best and Easiest Way To Get European Citizenship Thu, 26 Jan 2023 11:47:17 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://fivetoeurope.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/cropped-five-to-europe-icon-32x32.png brexit – Five to Europe https://fivetoeurope.com 32 32 Why should I confirm my Polish citizenship, become a Polish citizen and obtain a Polish passport? https://fivetoeurope.com/2023/01/26/why-should-i-confirm-my-polish-citizenship-become-a-polish-citizen-and-obtain-a-polish-passport/ Thu, 26 Jan 2023 11:17:51 +0000 https://fivetoeurope.com/?p=994310

If you have Polish ancestry, there is a chance you are eligible to obtain Polish citizenship by descent and get a Polish passport. There is a list of requirements you and your ancestors need to meet to prove that Polish citizenship was not lost, and a set of evidence you need to provide in the form of certified or original documents. If you wonder if you should do that, below you can find additional information that should convince you!

1. You will become a Polish citizen, but in addition to that also a European Citizen.

That gives you access to the entire European Union and much easier residential and visa requirements in other countries which may not be a part of the EU but are still in Europe. Basically, being Polish opens your European door!

2. You can travel freely within Europe (Schengen zone border-free area) and not only.

No more queuing at the airport before “Other countries” sign. Once you are in the Schengen zone; you are a European Union citizen and that gives you the right of free movement. There are also no border controls while you travel by land. Sometimes you don’t even realize you crossed the border already and are in a different country.

pexels mihis alex 21014 scaled

 

3. You can live anywhere within the EU.

A Polish passport gives you freedom to reside anywhere in Europe. You just need to register your residency with the country of your choice and for that please contact local authorities. It is also much easier for Polish citizens to buy a property in Europe. Besides that, if you decide to spend your retirement somewhere in Greece or Italy, guess what? You can!

4. You can work anywhere within the EU and some non-EU countries like Norway, Switzerland among others.

Once you are a Polish passport holder, the European job market is widely open for you. You just need to apply for a job and get it. Your employer will not need to sponsor you or acquire a job permit, you as a Polish and European citizen can work without any visa or time limits.

pexels andrea piacquadio 3760263

5. You can pass it to your children and grandchildren and so on.

Yes, once you are eligible for Polish citizenship confirmation by descent, so are your children and your further descendants in the future. Think about securing access to public European universities and the job market for them. They will also be able to freely backpack through Europe without a need for a visa and requirement to leave after 90 days. They will be grateful! If you are a Polish citizen, and if you just got a child, think about securing Polish citizenship and Polish passport for him or her.

6. Your spouse, despite not being a Polish citizen, gets equal rights to yours to work and reside in Europe.

Polish citizenship cannot be passed via marriage, however, in case you are married, and once you are a Polish passport holder, your spouse gets the same rights as yours to reside and work in any European country. You just need to follow the regulations in the country of your choice, register your spouse residency with the appropriate authorities, and she or he is free to stay with you. There are some options for obtaining citizenship by naturalization after a certain period, but this is a different procedure to Polish citizenship confirmation by descent and different rules and requirements apply in case of naturalization across Europe.  Learn more about family members rights from our FAQs section.

7. Your other family members are also eligible to confirm their Polish citizenship.

Once we establish after whom we could confirm your Polish citizenship by descent, all your family members that are directly related to him or her, are eligible for Polish citizenship confirmation along with you. You only need one Polish ancestor; you need to prove lineage and confirm he or she did not lose Polish citizenship and passed it to you. All descendants of your Polish ancestor, such as your siblings, cousins, parents, aunts, and uncles can confirm Polish citizenship as well and become Polish citizens. If you are a confirmed Polish citizen, it is enough to give us your consent to use your file, and your research findings, and we will be able to use it to your other family members.

parents with their children walking in forest

8. Once you are a Polish citizen you can study for free at many public universities or get reduced fees.

Many public universities across Europe offer free education to European Union citizens. By being a Polish citizen and Polish passport holder, you can either study for free or at reduced tuition fees. A Polish passport also gives you an opportunity to apply for European Union programs organized by the European Union such as student’s exchange or doctors’ exchange. Once you are Polish and a European citizen, you can apply to study at many prestigious European universities, not only in Poland.

9. You get the benefits of double citizenship and you can use whichever passport is more convenient while applying for visas or entering countries outside Europe (e.g. Asia).

One you have your Polish passport issued to you, you get the full package of rights that goes along with it. As a Polish citizen, it will be easier for you to travel to and within Europe. But not only. When you travel outside Europe, check visa requirements as Polish passport holders have visa free entry to many countries. For instance, in some cases it may be more convenient for you to use a Polish passport while travelling to Asia than the passport you currently hold. Just use whichever is better for you and enjoy the benefits of being Polish dual citizen.

If you would like to learn more about Polish citizenship confirmation, please feel free to contact our Polish citizenship experts.

We will be more than happy to assess your situation, advise on the best possible option for you and give you details about next steps.

How to get in touch with Polish Citizenship Experts:

 Contact us for a free consultation and confirmation of your eligibility for Polish citizenship by descent. You can fill in our Contact Form on our website, send us an email at contact@fivetoeurope.com or give us a call phone / WhatsApp / Signal + 48 509 374 209

]]> Brexit and British citizens of Polish descent https://fivetoeurope.com/2023/01/19/brexit-and-british-citizens-of-polish-descent/ Thu, 19 Jan 2023 10:00:00 +0000 https://fivetoeurope.com/?p=989063

How did the Polish ancestors of British citizens land in the United Kingdom?

In the United Kingdom there is a big population of British Poles, British citizens of Polish descent. Many of their ancestors settled down in the UK after World War II. There were Polish soldiers, servicemen, and women, who fought alongside allied forces, Polish military personnel, Polish survivors of German concentration and POW camps. After WWII ended, many of them did not want to or could not return to Poland, due to the fact that Poland became a communist country and Soviet repressions of Poles. As there were soldiers and former members of the Home Army, they were often at risk to be oppressed and be executed by the Soviets.

Initially, a large Polish community cantered around near military camps, where military personnel had been stationed during the war. Later on, once they felt more comfortable and used to British civil life, they spread out across the country.

Great Britain offered shelter and a new home to Polish families and Polish soldiers fighting during the war under the British Command. After a couple of years of living in the UK, most of them took British citizenship by naturalization but that did not cause loss of Polish citizenship. Polish citizenship, unless renounced intentionally, was kept by them and passed to their descendants, children and grandchildren, who now can go through the process of Polish citizenship confirmation and get a Polish passport. 

British citizens with Polish descent living in the UK

Nowadays, lots of descendants of Polish soldiers, military personnel, and war refugees live in the UK. They are grandchildren or great-grandchildren of Polish war heroes, who can obtain Polish citizenship after their Polish ancestors and this way guarantee themselves free access to the European Union.

There are several archives and institutions in the UK which keep records about Polish soldiers and pilots such as The Ministry of The Defence. They often have books of soldiers, confirming military service history, details such as date and place of birth, family members details. Records confirming military service in the Polish Resettlement Corps often confirm Polish citizenship of your ancestor and are a great source of additional information in case additional research is needed in Poland. If you have them already, you can send them to us at contact@fivetoeurope.com for a review. After seeing them, we will be able to confirm if you are eligible for Polish citizenship by descent and advice what else (if anything) will be needed in addition to support your Polish citizenship claim.

Why is it worth confirming Polish citizenship for British citizens?

With the Brexit vote, the United Kingdom withdrew its membership from the European Union. British citizens who still wish to work, study, or travel in the EU will need to follow a different process. That means they would need to legally register as a resident or in some cases, apply for a visa or work permit.

Therefore, if you are a British citizen with Polish ancestry, it is very convenient for you to confirm your Polish citizenship and apply for a Polish passport, which equals the passport of the European Union. This way, you can secure yourself and your family members, children and grandchildren an easy access to the European job market and visa free travels. In the future, if you or anyone from your family, decides to move abroad, Polish citizenship will also be helpful. With a Polish passport you can reside anywhere within the European Union and buy property which has much less formalities. You can hold dual citizenship, British and Polish citizenship and depending on the situation, you can use whichever passport is more convenient.

A Polish passport will allow you to stay in the European Union for more than 90 days without a need for you to leave the Schengen zone. If you would like to spend your retirement in one of the European Union countries, it is worth considering applying for your Polish citizenship confirmation and getting a Polish passport as a result of it. 

Process of confirming Polish citizenship for a British citizen with Polish ancestry – what do you need to know?

Contact us for a free consultation of your situation, and we will closely check your case and your Polish ancestor’s details. We will analyse your family immigration history and check your eligibility for a Polish citizenship application. Depending on whether you have enough Polish documents or not, we will conduct research across archives in Poland and the UK to search for documents oriented towards Polish citizenship confirmation.

How to get in touch with Polish Citizenship Experts:

 Get a free consultation and confirmation of your eligibility for Polish citizenship by descent. You can fill in our Contact Form on our website, send us an email at contact@fivetoeurope.com or give us a call phone / WhatsApp / Signal + 48 509 374 209

]]> History of Polish emigration to the United Kingdom. https://fivetoeurope.com/2021/07/16/polish-emigration-to-the-united-kingdom/ Fri, 16 Jul 2021 18:13:00 +0000 https://fivetoeurope.com/?p=989155

Beginnings of the Polish-British migration

The history of Polish-British migration relations is relatively short. It was not until the end of the 19th century that a phenomenon that could be described as a migration wave took place. Of course, Poles have been traveling to Britain for hundreds of years, but never before on such a scale.

First Polish migrants to the United Kingdom

The 19th century migration wave did not concern Polish citizens (Poland as a country did not exist back then). The migrants, from what used to be and is the territory of Poland, were mainly Jewish of Polish origin, and it was caused by the anti-Semitic policy of the Russian Empire, which took place between 1881 and 1884. 

The main direction of emigration at that time was the United States. However about 200 thousand people came to Great Britain and settled down mainly in East London. At the same time, difficult economic conditions were an additional reason for the migration of workers from Galicia and Silesia, mainly miners and shipyard workers. This led to the establishment of the Polish Catholic Mission – also in East London.  

World War II migration to the UK

During World War II and shortly after it, the United Kingdom became an asylum for the Polish government, whose members arrived here from France in 1940. The Polish Government in exile in the United Kingdom functioned until 1990 when the first Polish democratic elections took place! 

Why was this wave of emigration so numerous, when the Polish government consisted of no more than a dozen people? Along with it, nearly 30 out of 85 thousand Polish soldiers came to the UK. These were soldiers who formed the Polish Army in France. It was these soldiers who fought in the aerial Battle of Britain in the fall of 1940, which held „Operation Sea Lion” – the German invasion of the British Isles. 

This was not the end of the wave of wartime emigration, which culminated in the arrival of over 200 thousand Polish citizens, mostly military personnel and their families, who by 1947 found themselves in Great Britain. Some of them (about 100 thousand) returned to Poland, some emigrated further, but about 150 thousand people remained in England permanently. 

Migration of Poles to the British Isles after the war

After World War II emigration of Polish citizens to the West was much more difficult, but it does not mean that it didn’t take place. Many people holding Polish citizenship found their way out of Poland, mainly due to harsh conditions of living in the communist country and repressions of the communist government towards its citizens.

The breakthrough came in 1993 when the visa requirement was abolished, and then in 2004 when Poland joined the EU. After 2004, not only Poland, but the whole European Union and beyond, entered the era of freedom of movement associated with unlimited possibilities and great flexibility of living within the European Union state countries territories.

]]>