On Wednesday 8 March, the European Commission took stock of the implementation since 3 March 2022 of the directive on temporary protection activated after the outbreak of war in Ukraine and which now benefits 4 million refugees.
According to a Communication published on the same day, Member States had also granted temporary protection to 70,000 other third-country nationals who had also fled Ukraine and to 300 people considered stateless persons, and had chosen another form of protection for the remaining third-country nationals.
According to the Commission, Member States have nevertheless made every effort to ensure that these people receive equivalent rights and protection status as quickly as those granted to Ukrainians.
The communication looks back at all the actions undertaken in one year, from the Ukrainian refugee registration platform, to the financial support to local authorities through the FAST-CARE programme, to the operational support provided by Frontex to frontline Member States or to Moldova.
As regards the number of Ukrainian arrivals in the EU, the Commission notes that by February 2023, a total of 16 million entries from Ukraine and Moldova had been recorded, of which 14 million were Ukrainian nationals and 11 million crossings in the opposite direction were recorded.
In total, almost 4 million applications for temporary protection have been registered in the EU, of which more than 3 million were in the first half of 2022. And since June 2022, the number of weekly registrations of temporary protection status has been steadily declining, with some fluctuations, the Commission writes.
Moreover, by the end of 2022, almost half of the current beneficiaries of temporary protection (3.8 million) were hosted in Germany and Poland.
The Commission is also announcing new measures, such as €10 million in financial support for childcare in Ukraine. New guidelines will also be provided to Member States on the registration of children who arrive with a Ukrainian guardian.
On Wednesday, Commission Vice-President Margarítis Schinás also drew attention to the situation of Ukrainian children who have arrived in the EU and who represent 1/3 of the refugees, but “only half of them” have so far been able to return to school, statistics which need to be improved.
Barriers also exist in the access of Ukrainian refugees to health services, and the mental health of people who have fled the war should be given special attention, the Vice-President stressed.
Link to the communication: https://aeur.eu/f/5ou (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)