EU Home Affairs Ministers will review the situation, on Monday 28 March in Brussels, of refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and discuss the need for additional funding or coordination of efforts, as more than 3.5 million people have fled the country since 24 February.
In particular, the ministerial states will be invited to present their offers to host refugees in Moldova, six of them as well as Norway having made commitments to this effect at this stage (for 11,500 people in total), according to a preparatory note for the meeting of the French Presidency of the EU Council.
“It is now urgent to organise the reception within the EU of people coming from Ukraine to take refuge in Moldova”, says the document dated Wednesday 23 March.
Romania has agreed to establish a reception centre on its territory. In order to organise this reception, the Commission has prepared, in the framework of the Solidarity Platform, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) specifying the conditions under which the persons concerned will be identified, selected, transported and received in the Member States. The organisation of the relocations themselves could be entrusted to the Commission.
“Some Member States have expressed the wish that the transport of the refugees concerned should be eligible for EU financial support”, the note adds.
Ministers will therefore be asked to present a hosting commitment and “to confirm their hope that operations be initiated as soon as possible in accordance with the procedures laid down in the SOPs, with an effective date to be defined in the very near future”.
In general for refugees from Ukraine, some Member States have started to set up coordination systems between themselves to organise and plan the transport of refugees in a concerted manner. “Such coordination would be useful and effective at the level of the entire European Union. It could be entrusted to the Commission, which has already set up a solidarity platform”, proposes the French note.
As the refugee registration procedure is an important element in the monitoring, reception and protection of the persons concerned, “it is proposed that the Commission be asked to prepare a solution which would allow, in the short term, for the consolidation at European level of the registrations carried out in the national databases”, the EU Council Presidency also suggests.
The ministers will also be invited to discuss security issues, from checking European databases to preventing crime, such as child exploitation, with theEuropean Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats (EMPACT) network.
Frontex and Europol deployed on the ground
At this stage, 257 Frontex officers are currently deployed at the EU’s borders with Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, including: - 204 officers in Romania (157 at the Ukrainian border, 47 at the Moldovan border); - 18 officers deployed in Poland; - 18 agents in Moldova, - 14 in Slovakia.
Frontex could mobilise up to 2 600 agents.
Europol has deployed four officers in Slovakia, as many in Poland and two in Moldova. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)