4 Million Receive Temporary Protection After Fleeing Ukraine

Nearly four million non-EU citizens who fled the war in Ukraine had been granted temporary protection by the end of March 2023, according to the bloc's official Eurostat database. Some 98 percent of those were Ukrainian citizens, with women aged 35-64 making up the biggest share (47 percent), while 35 percent were children and only 18 percent men. As the following chart shows, the highest number of applications were granted in Germany, which gave 1,067,755 people temporary protection, followed by Poland with 976,575 and Czechia with 325,245.

The EU’s Temporary Protection Directive was first adopted in 2001 in the wake of the armed conflicts in the Western Balkans and subsequent major displacement of people. But despite the directive being more than 20 years old, it was only enacted for the first time in March 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This has raised questions over why it was not used sooner, for example during the crisis of migration policy in 2015, drawing criticism over Europe’s double standard when it comes to helping refugees from different countries.

The directive provides beneficieries a number of rights including to a residence permit for the duration of the protection (which can be from one year to three years) as well as access to the asylum procedure, access to employment, suitable accommodation, social welfare, medial care and education for those under 18.

According to Eurostat, application numbers had declined across the EU since one month earlier due to the deregistration of temporary protection statuses.