After the accession of Crimea to Russia in 2014, requests for international protection from citizens of Ukraine have increased by 41%
More than two million people have fled Ukraine since Vladimir Putin’s troops invaded the country two weeks ago. Most of them have found refuge in neighboring countries like Poland, Hunger O Slovakiabut the rest of Europe is already preparing for the massive reception of the more than four million people that the United Nationsestimates that they leave the country because of the conflict.
The war has broken out now, but the confrontation between the two countries has been latent for eight years, since in 2014 Russia annexed the peninsula of Crimea. Since then, 86,000 Ukrainians have requested international protection from the different countries of the Unin Europeaamong them Espaa what with 16,406 requests it becomes the third country to receive the largest number of asylum applications from people of Ukrainian nationality, only behind Italy and Germany. However, of all of them, only 1,420, that is, 8.6%.
“The main reason why so many are denied is because of the possibility of relocation within the country itself, a concept that is applied in international protection,” he explains. Francisco Jose Rojoresponsible for the legal service of Accem, the Spanish NGO specialized in assisting refugees. “Until now the conflict was taking place in the southern part of Ukraine, in Crimea and the Donbs so it was considered that these people might save their lives and their rights in other regions of the country.” And the fact is that refugee status is only granted to anyone who is unable to find protection in their country of origin or residence for fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion or belonging to a certain social group or political opinion, as specified in the Ministry of Interior.
The Donbs conflict triggered protection requests in our country to 946 -in 2013 there were barely 14 that reached the asylum offices- and since then the number haincreased by 41%, until reaching 1,335 last year. However, despite the fact that favorable resolutions have also increased, more than 90% of them have been rejected or have not received a response. “This increase in applications -2019 broke the record for files- has caused a collapse in the Administration with more than 8,000 applications pending resolution as of January 1, 2022,” says Rojo, and ensures that priority was given to other nationalities that , as the Syria, they seemed to have “more well-founded” reasons. Despite this, during 2015 and 2016 the Ukrainians were the country with the second highest number of asylum seekers in our country, only behind Syria.
Spain, like the rest of Europe, is preparing to adopt new measures to deal with the new wave of refugees that we are facing following the Russian invasion. In this sense, the Spanish Government has launched the European directive on temporary protection which will simplify the procedures for granting residence and work permits to all Ukrainians who arrive in our country fleeing the war, as well as to all those who already live in Spanish territory. “Precisely what is intended with this system is to speed up the procedures and that the offices are not overloaded with files. Processing an asylum application is slow, it can take 1 to 2 years and this would be unfeasible in the face of a massive influx of people,” indicate from Accem. This directive that the European Commission activated on March 4 was approved in 2001, but has never been used, not even with the previous refugee crisis of 2015.
In addition, of those who arrive now, the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escriv,He assured that with this measure he also intends to regularize the situation of those Ukrainians who already reside in our country. In Spain there is a large community of Ukrainian citizens who are concentrated above all in Catalonia, Valencian Community and Madrid, the same autonomous communities that receive the largest number of asylum applications. In total, according to the latest data from the OTHERcorresponding to January 2021, in our country there is a total of 112,034 Ukrainians and according to calculations by the Ministry of the Interior, there may be close to 10,000 people who are currently in an irregular situation.
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