In our earlier article about the expansion of the ECo-C, some questions were posed relating to the speed of said expansion in larger Western European countries. Poland was not one of them, but the question of whether and when the ECo-C will expand to Poland is linked to many important EU and Polish issues.

The accession of Poland was, as everyone knows, a highly controversial thing. British newspapers constantly discussed the tides of Poles who would take advantage of the free movement of persons to go to the United Kingdom and work there. Meanwhile, in France, the debate on Polish workers got so incongruous that someone felt it necessary to issue an image featuring a handsome plumber saying „I’m staying in Poland, you’re welcome to come too!“ Although now known to be a hoax, the image was at the time attributed to Polish authorities, and used to put the mass hysteria surrounding this labour force into sharp perspective.

In and of itself, the hysteria is simply a hype, and a nonsensical one at that (it should be noted that the right to take up employment without any prior work permit was phased out for the newly acceding countries; Poles still require such permits today). But the hype stems from specific issues, such as the matter of an international, migrating  workforce, the insufficiencies of the Polish labour market, the importance of comparative qualification standards across the European continent.

The National Action Plan for Employment 2008 (NAPE 2008) reports that, in Poland in 2006, only some 55.7% of persons aged 15-64 were employed, about 9% below the EU average. Some of the country’s largest problems include unemployment, insufficient institutional, infrastructural and related support, and, one notes with interest, insufficient access and availability of training, both related to regular education, and to lifelong learning. However, insufficiencies also pinpoint possibilities for improvement, and indeed, the NAPE also suggests the aforementioned as opportunities which can be emphasized to strengthen the Polish labour market.

From this respect, the ECo-C is really something that Poland in general, and the Poles themselves should welcome as a development: not only does it provide a marketable professional qualification, but because of its stringent quality assurance mechanisms, because of the Europe-wide scope of the certificate, it helps strengthen  the Polish Labour market, builds the value-added of the workforce, and improves its connections to a wider network of standards in both communication science and in the teaching thereof.

Pictured: Map of Europe
Legend: (1) Old EU Member states [light pink], New EU member states [light yellow], Poland [Orange], Others [Grey]