“Our proposal provides that temporary protection should not be granted to newly arrived persons who are not allowed to leave Ukraine due to their military obligations,” Magnus Brunner, the European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration, said Friday when announcing proposed changes to the European protective status for Ukrainians.
The security situation for Ukrainians should remain in place, although new conditions could apply, Brunner said at a meeting of EU interior ministers in Luxembourg in early June.
Blanket temporary protection granted without review
Ukrainians forced to flee their country as a result of Russia’s invasion of their homeland have enjoyed temporary protection status in the EU since March 2022.
This status is due to expire in early March 2027, and must now be extended before it expires. The difference between this status and asylum is that protection is temporary and people entering the block are not subject to individual case-by-case review.
A European Commission official stressed that the European Commission’s proposal has been drafted in gender-neutral terms. But ultimately, it will most commonly affect men between the ages of 23 and 60. The updates worked into the new proposal – which does not apply to Ukrainians already in the EU – will only take effect if the Council of Europe officially approves it and publishes it in the Official Journal of the EU, another Commission official underlined.
on 31st march EU statistics agency Eurostat counted A total of 4.33 million Ukrainians are living in the block under temporary protection status. Of these, about 1.3 million (29.4% of the EU total) were in Germany, followed by 950,000 in Poland (22.2% of the total) and 380,000 in the Czech Republic (8.8%). Slightly more than one-quarter of the group were adult males, the agency said.
Time for ‘more solidarity, not less’
Michael O’Flaherty, the human rights commissioner at the Council of Europe – which is not an EU institution – criticized the proposal. O’Flaherty expressed concern about “increasing pressure to prematurely end the temporary protection arrangement” and limit access for military-age men. The commissioner said now was “a time for more solidarity, not less.”
The EU justified the new proposal by saying that Ukraine had requested the move, and that Kiev’s need to impose military obligations on its citizens for its own defense was legitimate. Bruner said on Friday that this proposal has been put forward in coordination with the EU member states.
Germany, Austria want to see change
When the issue was discussed at a meeting of EU interior ministers, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt spoke in favor of removing the protection status for Ukrainian men of military age. However, Dobrindt said those people should be allowed to apply for asylum.
Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said he also “very strongly” supports ending automatic protection for Ukrainian men of military age.
On the other hand, Estonian Interior Minister Igor Taro was skeptical. He suggested that the best solution would be to extend the existing temporary protection system without exceptions, but rather to engage in discussions with Kyiv.
Why is the EU debating this matter now?
Dobrindt said the current debate is driven by the pending extension as well as the fact that “the arrival of military-aged individuals from Ukraine has increased over the past few months.”
Ukrainian men between the ages of 23 and 60 are generally banned from leaving the country. But although Ukrainians become soldiers from the age of 18, they cannot be drafted into military service until they are 25. Last summer, Kiev announced that men between the ages of 18 and 23 could leave the country, leading to a surge in men moving abroad.
The discussion is not new. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has repeatedly called on Kiev to stop young people from leaving the country so they can serve in the army. Visiting Berlin in April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stressed that the return of military-age men would also be in the interests of the Ukrainian military. He said that ultimately, it is a question of fairness.
Now that the European Commission has put forward its proposal, it must be approved by a majority of EU member states. EU ministers have said that in the past, such decisions were taken “too quickly”.
This article was originally written in German.