The European Union (EU) is going to mobilize 17 billion euros to help member countries welcome refugees from Ukraine, but this amount will no doubt prove to be insufficient if the number of arrivals (nearly 3, 9 million at this stage, including 1.5 million children) continues to grow. “We can go further in a second step, if necessary”, indicated, Monday, March 28 in Brussels, Gerald Darmanin, at the end of a new extraordinary meeting of the ministers of the interior of the Twenty-Seven.
The number of four million people received, announced when the war broke out by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), will therefore soon be reached, even that of daily arrivals is falling (41,000 over the past twenty -four hours, according to data provided Monday by the UNHCR, for 200,000 a day at the end of February). The Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, refuses to comment on the lasting nature, or not, of this development. ” We can always fear the continuation of the initiatives of [Vladimir] Putin “, she advances cautiously. The International Organization for Migration estimates that 6.5 million Ukrainians have had to flee their homes and that a good number of them could therefore still head for Europe.
Anxious to continue to display their unity and solidarity, the member countries did not address, on Monday, the subjects which could annoy, such as the compulsory relocation quotas requested by Germany. “The goal is to favor intelligent processes, to first find what is most useful for people”says the side of the French presidency of the EU.
Relieve Poland and Moldova
Poland, which was one of the states most opposed to welcoming Syrian refugees in 2015-2016, has seen a total of 2.3 million Ukrainians arrive since the start of the war on February 24. The country could be the great beneficiary of a system of compulsory relocation, but, refusing to relaunch the debate on this question which had strongly divided Europeans in the past, the Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson believes that it is necessary instead ” to encourage “ Ukrainian refugees to go to countries that are less under pressure.
To facilitate such distribution, the Commission has set up a common platform for registering refugees and an index listing reception places. These initiatives, which take into account the size of the country, the overall number of asylum seekers and the number of Ukrainian refugees received, are supposed to help relieve Poland, where the situation risks becoming “untenable”according to M.me Johansson, but also Austria and the Czech Republic. A transport coordination platform, intended to facilitate the transport of refugees, will also be set up.
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