Poland Starts Reopening Its Visa Application Centres Abroad
Asserting that the situation related to the Coronavirus pandemic has improved for the better, the Polish authorities have started to reopen their visa application centres abroad, with the limited operation.
The first countries that have benefited from the move are Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey and Russia, announces VFS Global, which is an outsourcing and technology services company that serves governments and diplomatic missions worldwide, and to which Poland has outsourced visa services in several world countries.
“Poland Visa Application Centres in Brest, Grodno and Minsk (Belarus) are accepting long-term visa for work, visa for Pole Cardholders and short-term Schengen visa for international drivers, and Ukraine have resumed accepting long term and short-term visa applications,” the notice reads.
At the same time, the notice announces that the Visa Application Centres in Turkey have also reopened from June 1, 2020, without specifying the visa types being admitted at these centres.
As per visa centres in Ukraine, the ones located in the following cities have resumed operation since June 3:
- Chernivtsi
- Dnipropetrovsk
- Ivano Frankivsk
- Kharkiv
- Kherson
- Khmelnytskyi
- Kropyvnytskyi
- Kyiv
- Lutsk
- Lviv
- Odessa,
- Rivne
- Ternopil
- Uzhgorod
- Vinnytsia
- Zaporizhia
- Zhytomyr
This week, on June 24, the Polish Visa Application Centres in Moscow have also reopened, but they are only admitting applications for long-stay student & work visas, resident permits and exceptional case applications.
Poland put to an end to the temporary border controls at the internal borders of the European Union, as well as the mandatory quarantine, on June 13, which measures have been introduced due to Coronavirus pandemic developments.
On EU Commission’s recommendation to the Member States to start resuming visa operations abroad, the Polish authorities are working on starting yo issue visas to third-country citizens, so they will be eligible to enter Poland when external borders reopen.
