At the end of the first week of the Russian invasion, i.e. on March 3, 2022, more than 1 million refugees (2.3% of the Ukrainian population) left Ukraine for neighboring European countries, in particular the Poland, but also other countries such as Hungary, Moldova or Slovakia. While the flow of refugees is on the verge of becoming the biggest migration crisis in Europe since the Second World War, the reaction of European countries is very different compared to that provoked by the Syrian or Afghan refugee crisis.
The flow of Ukrainian refugees is likely to explode in the coming months. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates the potential number of refugees over the next few months at between 4 and 7 million people, far exceeding the total arrivals of migrants and refugees in Europe over the past seven years.
While the migration crisis of 2015 threatened to disintegrate the European Union, whose Member States have still not agreed on a system for the redistribution of irregular immigrants and refugees, the Ukrainian migration crisis seems to be unfolding without provoking too many concerns in European countries, in addition to the management of humanitarian assistance, which is always difficult.
Far, in any case, from the hysteria generated just a few months ago by a few thousand Iraqi and Afghan refugees pushed by Belarus to try to enter countries of the European Union through the borders of Poland and of Lithuania between September and November 2021, and which were turned back and considered as a “hybrid threat”, that is to say, an act of war, to the point of triggering the construction of a fence at the level of the border between Poland and Belarus.
This time, the fate of the Ukrainian people seems to concern much more than the impact of the flow of refugees on European societies.
Provisions of the 2001 Temporary Protection Directive activated
On the contrary, the EU activated on March 3, and for the first time, provisions of the 2001 Temporary Protection Directive -never applied before- which provide for an unlimited reception of refugees in the event of a crisis, with the granting automatic and immediate status of refugee without having to submit an asylum application and, therefore, without going through the long administrative process of recognition, with the right of access to essential services – accommodation, food aid, health assistance, education- and a work permit for an initial period of three years.
Paradoxically, it is one of the countries most relentless in its opposition to any type of openness towards refugees from third countries, Poland, which has become the champion of this reception of Ukrainians displaced by the war, announcing that it is ready to welcome “as many Ukrainians as will arrive at our borders”. And the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, proclaimed that “all those who must flee Putin’s bombs will be welcome with open arms”.
Refugees like no other
While waiting for the impact of this new flow in the longer term, and the European response which, among other things, will depend on the duration of the war and the magnitude of the flow of refugees, here are some reasons explaining this very different reaction. . The war in Ukraine is European, and solidarity with Ukrainian refugees is understood as a dimension of the unanimous position against Russia.
The wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Libya or Ethiopia do not cause the same turmoil in European public opinion as would a war taking place on European soil. Second reason, several European countries already have a significant Ukrainian diaspora. These are migrant workers who have arrived since the 1990s, in a continuous flow with perhaps a million in Poland (including 330,000 with a residence permit) and more than 200,000 in Germany, Italy or the Czech Republic. These networks of relatives and friends of the Ukrainian diaspora quickly mobilized to welcome the refugees.
In fact, Ukrainian citizens have already benefited from visa-free entry into EU territory since 2017, where they can stay for 90 days simply by presenting their passport. Third, Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians, and ethnically Slavs. As such, they integrate without great difficulty in countries like Poland.
Finally, the human tide of Ukrainians is much harder to stop than the flow of Syrian refugees; the countries of first reception are European. While the EU has succeeded in retaining in Turkey, that is to say far from its territory, 3.6 million Syrian refugees (three times higher than those it has received), Ukraine shares almost 1,400 kilometers of direct land borders with four EU Member States: Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary.
Ultimately, while Europe is facing a real migratory crisis without precedent in terms of the magnitude of the potential flows, it seems to be preparing in all serenity to ensure the reception of new refugees under better humanitarian conditions, as well as their possible integration into European societies and labor markets.
In turn, this shows that while we were talking about a migration crisis in 2015, and when the migrants came mainly from Syria or Afghanistan, but also from Africa, it was above all a crisis of reception and rejection of non-European migrants from Muslim or African countries.
With Agency / ECO Inspirations