Poland has lost a million citizens, says expert

It has been estimated that over a million Polish citizens will not be returning to their homeland, having made a life abroad following Poland’s accession to the EU.

At present, Poland’s population is approximately 36.8 million, having dropped from 38.2 million in 2004.

The estimates concerning those that will not return were put forward by the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna newspaper, comparing research by the Central Statistical Office of Poland (GUS) and the opinions of experts.

Professor Krystyna Iglicka from the Centre for International relations believes that the official GUS statistics from 2009, which claimed that close to 2 million Poles were living abroad, underestimated the reality.

Furthermore, GUS itself acknowledges that some 75 percent of those living abroad have been there for more than a year. A significant proportion of these have already spent more than half a decade outside their homeland, following accession to the EU in 2004.