The EU stands ready to grant aid and humanitarian protection to Ukrainian refugees through facilitated asylum procedures. There is the intention to activate the mechanism for the automatic recognition of “temporary protection”, a device envisaged by the common rules and never used so far. With this system, for which unanimity in the Council is not needed but a qualified majority, it is possible to proceed with the granting of international protection without going through the traditional bureaucratic ways, and with awards entrusted to the national authorities of the various Member States.
It is the 2001 directive that recognizes immediate protection in the event of a “massive influx of displaced persons from third countries” who cannot return to their own country. A reception regime designed for situations in which there is “the risk that the asylum system cannot cope with this influx without prejudicial effects for its correct functioning, for the interests of the persons in question and of other applicants for protection” .
The European Commission intends to proceed in this direction. Instant protection for all Ukrainians. “We will propose the activation of this procedure after the meeting of ministers,” reveals the Commissioner for Internal Affairs, Ylva Johannson, who has decided to hear the positions around the table of ministers.
Belgium is in favor of the special mechanism, and Sweden is also open to this solution. “Solidarity is voluntary, and we need binding legal rules for the EU,” acknowledges the interior minister, Anders Ygeman. Directive 55 of 2001 is there, and responds to the needs put on the table by Stockholm. France, with the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, is also willing to activate this special mechanism. “We will put the question on the table,” assures Minister Gérald Darmanin, who suggests that a green light could come next week. Interior ministers will hold a formal meeting, already scheduled, on 4 March. Now may be the time to approve.
Therefore, immediate protection will not be approved on the occasion of this extraordinary meeting of ministers underway in Brussels, where in any case all the Member States say they are willing to take charge of the refugees. “Italy will be among the countries, I hope many, that will show solidarity”, assures Minister Luciana Lamorgese, who says she is ready to “redistribute on our territory” the incoming Ukrainians and Ukrainians.
At the level of principle there is a political agreement to take charge of the refugees. Austria and Hungary, traditionally not very reactive in this matter, are ready to welcome migrants. As well as Denmark. “Our door is open,” says Mattias Tesfaye. The position of Norway and Switzerland is different, non-EU countries still present at the meeting. The ministers of the two countries are willing to support humanitarian aid, and only secondarily, “if necessary”, to welcome the Ukrainians on the run.
The factor that risks jamming everything is the numerical one. There is no telling how many migrants will be able to arrive from Ukraine. Currently there are already about 360,000, with the Commission warning: “We must be ready for millions” of arrivals, Johannson says. The reasoning on temporary protection could therefore collide with fears of very numerous flows and the difficulty of personal quotas to be protected to be redistributed among the Twenty-seven.