Polish citizen to be forced to serve foreign military

Hello readers.

I will try to put it short, if you have additional questions, feel free to ask me. Please move a thread to suitable forum if i got it wrong.

I was born in 1986, currently I have dual citizenship: estonian citizenship, which was obtained by birth in mid 1990s , and a polish citizenship which was obtained by birth(close relatives) in 2010. Permanently living in Estonia.

Due to my health I have never been asked to serve an estonian army by medical commision decisions since i was 18 until 2012 year, when i was considered healthy enough to serve for it.

It caught me by a total surprise, after doing a research,I have applied for removal of estonian citizenship entirely 6 months ago, the decision is still pending. And the decision cannot be positive during military period.

Technically dual citizenship in Estonia is not allowed and tolerated, the only exception is when person has both citizenshups obtained by birth.

So I have just a several weeks left to solve this issue, I have a familiy, work and I'm 26 so leaving Estonia for now would cause some blow to my life.

Ignoring the military invitation entirely is fined with 800 Eur fine and jail.

I have also found out from wiki that "penalties do exist for exercising foreign citizenship, such as identifying oneself to Polish authorities using a foreign identification document or serving in a foreign military without permission of Polish military authorities".

I am seeking help, maybe someone can give me an idea of what I should do? I am going to Polish embassy next week, do I have the right to ask for some sort of protection , or at least make sure I am not receiving penalties for exercising foreign citizenship because its not a free will.

Gleb

From the looks of it, you either serve or pay the fine and go to jail or leave the country. Frankly all of those options suck. Sorry to not be able to give you better news.


The general rule with dual citizens is that you are not entitled to consular assistance when you are in either of the nations which you are a citizen of.


If you have permission from Polish military authorities, you can serve in a foreign army. In this case, seeing as you'd be serving in the army of a NATO ally and not of your own free will, I can't see why the Polish military wouldn't give their permission, but it is certainly something to ask about when you are at the Polish embassy (possibly speak to the military attache).

Thank you for your input. This is clearly not an ordinary situation and can expect everything. I'm afraid though, that i won't be able to receive their permission in time, so that makes it even more complicated.

The Constitution of the Republic of Estonia foresees compulsory military service in the Defence Forces of all physically and mentally healthy male citizens.The duration of the compulsory military service is 8 or 11 months, depending on the education and position provided by the Defence Forces to the conscript. In the compulsory military service conscripts acquire basic knowledge necessary for them to act as specialists in wartime military units.

mil.ee/en/defence-forces/compulsory-military-service

Poland

Poland suspended compulsory military service on 5 December 2008 by the order of the Minister of Defence. Compulsory military service was formally abolished when the Polish parliament amended the conscription law on 9 January 2009; the law came into effect on 11 February 2009.


You are Estonian citizen, who also has Polish citizenship its all about your place of domicile.

glebbus, you are ordinarily resident in Estonia. The Polish Embassy can do nothing for you.

I'm not an expert on such issues but I think the general rule is that when one is a dual citizen (of countries x & y) country x treat you as you were only a citizen of x once the person is on the territory of x and the same goes for y, so when you are a citizen of Estonia and a permanent resident of Estonia, they have a right to treat you as any other Estonian citizen and I don't think Poland has anything to say here, If the Estonian gov was persecuting you in some way, perhaps then you could seek help of Poland but obligatory military service is not such a case of course...

In case of Polish permission for serving in foreign armies... I don't think it is relevant for dual citizens serving in the army of their "2nd country", It's rather for Polish citizens, who want to serve in foreign armies, without being citizens of those countries, so for example France (foreign legion) or USA (they allow green card holders to serve in their military), generally the permission is a quite new thing, in 90's or 00's people with dual citizenship were allowed/obliged to serve in the military of the country they were permanently residing in (so for example a dual Polish-French citizen was obliged to do a military service in Polish army just like other Poles If he was living permanently in Poland and in French army If he lived over there, then Poland had nothing to do with it, at least that's how it looked like in practice) and people holding only Polish citizenship were not allowed to serve in any other army, in result there were cases of for example Polish foreign legion soldiers being arrested once on holidays back in Poland, which was a controversial thing as they were serving in the allied army, hence the law was changed and said permission became an opportunity to legally serve in foreign armies of allied/friendly countries... So you can ask the embassy but most probably they will tell you that you don't have to bother with any permission.

So to sum it up, having a Polish citizenship seems to be a non-issue in your case, it won't help you or harm you in any way... If you find spending 6 months in the army very problematic, try to go around it the same way as locals do... there must be some ways, in Poland military service was obligatory until few years ago, however there were quite many ways to legally avoid it.