LISBON, Portugal – Despite the economic and debt crisis hitting Portugal, thousands of Ukrainians living in this southwestern European nation of 10 million people are in no hurry to return home.
Many came a decade ago, fleeing the rampant poverty, corruption and joblessness of Ukraine under President Leonid Kuchma. They arrived in Portugal, where many found better lives. Even today, many of them are reluctant to return to Ukraine, saying the situation hasn’t improved enough.
Not even Portugal’s recent fiscal crisis appears to have changed many minds.
Portugal was among the hardest hit in the European Union since the 2008 global economic crisis. Portugal’s budget deficit last year was 8.6 percent of gross domestic product.
Unemployment is 11.1 percent, the highest in years. And on April 7, the nation asked for a $114 billion bailout from the EU — equal to about half its annual gross domestic product.
The crisis is largely provoked by the lack of control over public expenditures that led to much of the overspending.”
– Miguel St. Aubyn, a professor of economics.
“The crisis is largely provoked by the lack of control over public expenditures that led to much of the overspending,” said Miguel St. Aubyn, a professor of economics at the Technical University of Lisbon.
Fears that the situation will worsen escalated after the recent resignation of Prime Minister Jose Socrates. He failed to secure a key vote on austerity measures in parliament. As a result, snap parliamentary elections are scheduled for June.
The EU hopes that elections will install a government that introduces austerity measures to help the nation out of its crisis, said Margarita Marques, head of the EU Commission’s representative office in Portugal.
The odds are that the opposition Social Democrats will come to power after the elections. According Aubyn, even if the Social Democrats win the elections, the victory will not be overwhelming. “In such a case, the Socialist Party may bring people to street using its strong ties with unions,” Aubyn said.
The crisis – and resulting attempts to cut government spending – are causing disruption. The subway in Lisbon was closed several times over the last month by striking workers protesting cuts. Businesses complain about shrinking demand due to tax hikes and pay cuts introduced by the outgoing government. Portugal’s youth are particularly vulnerable, especially graduating students entering a bleak job market.
Despite the hardships, social unrest is not visible on the streets, nor do many expect big street protests.
Ihor Hodovanets, a Ukrainian who works at one of Portugal’s many wineries, would love to return to his homeland but says rampant corruption in Ukraine. (Iryna Solomko)
Ukraine’s iron curtain
For many in the 53,000-member Ukrainian community in Portugal, the second-largest national minority in the country after Brazilians, the economic boom is largely over. Many are weighing whether to leave and where to go.
However, many said they are reluctant to leave immigrant-friendly Portugal, even for the familiarity of Ukraine. Workers say wages are still higher on the tough Portuguese job market than back home in Ukraine. The Ukrainians also say Portuguese corruption is lower than in Ukraine, while respect for rule of law is much higher.
Instead of being underpaid and treated as slave labor as often happens to blue-collar workers back at home, the Ukrainian community has won praise in Portugal.
Ukrainian workers learn the language fast. They are very disciplined and hardworking.”
– Eduardo de Sousa Ferreira, a Portuguese immigration expert.
“Ukrainian workers learn the language fast. They are very disciplined and hardworking,” said Eduardo de Sousa Ferreira, a Portuguese immigration expert. Such ethics would make them among the last to lose their jobs, Ferreira added.
But some are already out of work.
Yaroslav Biletskyy, a Ukrainian who came to Portugal 11 years ago, said his contract ended and now he is again looking for a job as a locksmith.
In spite of currently being unemployed, Biletskyy says that for the time being he feels secure. He is now on social security, and justifiably so after paying taxes in Portugal over the last decade.
Yet, he stresses that the hard times are being felt.
“There are now fewer jobs. Salaries have dropped,” he said.
Ihor Dudnyk from Vinnytsia came to Portugal with his family eight years ago and now enjoys working at a private farm there. (Yuriy Onyshkiv)
Ukrainians in Portugal who still have a job feel more or less socially secure, something their relatives back in Ukraine can’t boast of.
Halyna Bobyk, a Ukrainian junior school teacher, moved to Portugal nine years ago with her husband. Now she works in Lisbon in a kindergarten and has a part-time job as a radio anchor doing a Ukrainian-language news program.
Our life is settled here. If we move back to Ukraine, we’ll have to start from scratch.”
– Halyna Bobyk, a Ukrainian junior school teacher.
She and her husband, a construction worker, are not willing to return to their homeland.
“Our life is settled here,” she said. “If we move back to Ukraine, we’ll have to start from scratch.”
Teachers in Ukraine earn so little, that they need to make ends meet by asking the parents of their students to make extra donations to support basic essentials for the school, as well as supplements to their tiny salaries.
The average salary in Portugal is 600 euros in the countryside, and about 900 euros in the capital, Lisbon.
Many Ukrainians living outside of bustling metropolitan Kyiv can only dream of earning such salaries in Ukraine. And the few that do earn this much do not have the comfort of earning the salaries legally, so they are constantly worried about the squeeze of tax inspectors. Moreover, they can’t count on a healthcare, pension and justice system that works.
Ihor and Anna Dudnyk, a couple from Vinnytsia, came to Portugal eight years ago and are now happy on their corn farm. They also brought their two sons with them.
“My husband and I are getting around 700 and 500 euros respectively [per month],” said Anna Dudnyk. “This isn’t much, but considering the fact that we do not pay the rent and the utilities, it saves us a lot of money.”
We would return to Ukraine if we had a good job there.”
– Anna Dudnyk.
“We would return to Ukraine if we had a good job there,” Anna Dudnyk said.
Ferreira said Ukrainians feel comfortable on the Portuguese job market and face no discrimination.
The Ukrainian population in Portugal includes about 100 physicians. In comparison to the paltry salaries in Ukraine, said Dr. Olha Bayeva of Dnipropetrovsk, a doctor in Portugal starts with a monthly salary of 1,500 euros.
“Doctors in Portugal can make even much more than that,” Bayeva added.
However, other Ukrainians in Portugal say that the problem is not so much in Ukraine’s job market as in other inequalities back home.
Ihor Hodovanets from Vinnytsia, who makes about 600 euros per month at one of Portugal’s many wineries, said – all things being equal – he’d prefer to go home. But conditions are not equal, he said.
“We’d like to cultivate our own land, not someone else’s. But we fear corruption back at home,” Hodovanets said.
Pavlo Sadokha, president of the Association of Ukrainians in Portugal, said that the economic situation has improved in Ukraine in the last decade, but not enough to return home.
Total lawlessness is the major reason that keeps Ukrainian immigrants from returning to Ukraine.”
– Pavlo Sadokha, president of the Association of Ukrainians in Portugal.
“Total lawlessness is the major reason that keeps Ukrainian immigrants from returning to Ukraine,” Sadokha said. “For every miserable certificate in Ukraine, you are forced to give a bribe.”
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Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at onyshkiv@kyivpost.com. (Editor’s Note: The trip of the Kyiv Post journalist to Portugal was funded by the European Commission.)
