Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek promises to assist Ukrainians in obtaining work visas
The Czech Republic is actively helping countries in the Middle East, for example Jordan, by funding refugee camps located there. It helps the Gaza Strip by investing in various humanitarian programs. Like other EU countries, it hosts migrants who have illegally arrived in Europe on its territory.
The Czech Republic also helps Ukraine. It accepts compatriots, Volyn Czechs; non-profit organizations have worked and are working in various regions of Ukraine, including in the east of the country. However, as Radio Prague notes, it is not so easy for ordinary Ukrainians to come to the Czech Republic to study or work here.
Bohdan Raichynets represents the Ukrainian national minority on a special council under the Czech government. In July, in an interview with the Russian edition of Radio Prague, Bohdan Raichynets answered the question of whether Czech authorities could more actively help Ukrainians wishing to live in the Czech Republic: "They can, and this is a question for the Czech Foreign Ministry and the Interior Ministry. I believe that the Czech Republic will support the influx of Ukrainian students and further programs will be created for this. According to the European Union, this process indicates the democratization of society when students are brought in and shown how well they live in a particular European country, how democratic processes are applied. I know such programs, for example, from the same organization 'People in Need', when specialists from Ukraine were brought to the Czech Republic and taught advanced management technologies and principles of the non-profit sector. This direction seems to me the most promising."
However, the Czech government has chosen a different path to meet Ukrainians halfway: the country will actively accept Ukrainian specialists, professionals in IT and other fields, as well as ordinary workers. Work visas for Ukrainians will be issued under a "simplified" program. Already on November 9, the cabinet will discuss all the details of the project to attract Ukrainian specialists to the country.
Here is what Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek says about how the authorities will act towards those Ukrainians who have been invited to work by Czech companies. A person is expected in the Czech Republic, and he goes to one of the consulates of the Czech Republic in Ukraine with a request to give him a work visa: "If he provides confirmation that he is being hired, all the necessary documents, submits fingerprints, then his papers will be sent to the Czech Interior Ministry without delay. The data will be checked and a decision will be made to grant this person a one-year work visa."
In the Czech Republic, intermediaries are actively operating who charge Ukrainians considerable money for their services: assistance in finding a job. They will try to solve this problem. For example, the leadership of the Pardubice Region will open a special "contact center" in Uzhgorod, something like a labor exchange. People will come to this center, and many of them will find work in the Czech Republic. Many regions of the Czech Republic plan to open similar centers in various regions of Ukraine.
In Czech society, the attitude towards Ukrainians is much better than towards migrants from the Middle East and Africa. The State Secretary of the Czech Republic for EU Affairs, Tomas Prouza, said in an interview with Radio Prague at one time: "For us, Ukrainians are already a natural, full-fledged part of Czech society. Many are surprised when they learn that the Ukrainian national minority in the Czech Republic is even larger than the Slovak one. We see that Ukrainians who came to the Czech Republic integrate without problems, no one protests against them."