The EU states have finally approved the extension of temporary protection for refugees from Ukraine until March 2025.
Poland and the Czech Republic requested additional funding to help refugees. This was discussed at a meeting of interior ministers in Brussels.
The legislation guarantees refugees the same rights as EU citizens to work, education, social security, healthcare and housing.
All the EU states unanimously supported this decision.
Thus, Poland stated that as the country most affected by the influx of refugees from Ukraine (it has received more than 950,000 people and spent €8 billion on their maintenance), it has the right to demand that the European Commission provide adequate funding.
“The available support from the EU budget does not match the scale of the needs,” reads an extract from the statement.
In turn, the Czech Republic said it had spent almost €2bn on hosting refugees from Ukraine, the third largest amount. Currently, there are approximately 360,000 Ukrainians with temporary protection status in the Czech Republic.
Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said that more than 8 million Ukrainians have become refugees. More than 5 million have applied for temporary resident status in neighbouring Western European countries.
On 13 September, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced further assistance to Ukrainian refugees in the EU.
“We will be with Ukraine as long as it takes, at every step of its struggle. After all, we understand that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, 4 million Ukrainians have been sheltered by European countries. I want to tell all Ukrainians that we will always be waiting for you here now, as we were during the first weeks of the full-scale invasion,” the European Commission President said.
Later this month, the Council of the European Union extended the temporary protection mechanism for Ukrainians fleeing the war until March 2025.
“To provide certainty for the more than 4 million Ukrainian refugees currently living in the EU, the Council has agreed to extend temporary protection for people fleeing Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine from 4 March 2024 to 4 March 2025,” the body said in a statement.
The European Union introduced the Temporary Protection Directive after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 4 March 2022. According to the rules, Ukrainian refugees can obtain a residence permit without bureaucratic red tape. In addition, Ukrainian citizens can get a job in the EU, send their children to school, and take out health insurance.
