Soon there will be 4 million people fleeing the war in Ukraine. The willingness to help in the West is great. But Europe is not well equipped to cope with the wave of refugees in the long term.
A Ukrainian family evacuated from the war zone is registered by the Ukrainian police.
The Russian attack on Ukraine has so far displaced almost 10 million people. Of the 44 million inhabitants, 3.3 million have left the country. About 6.5 million Ukrainians are internally displaced. They seek refuge in the western parts of the country, which have so far hardly been hit by the fighting.
This is the fastest growing wave of refugees in Europe since World War II. It presents states and societies with challenges and problems that far exceed those of the refugee crisis of 2015/2016. At that time, one million people entered the EU via Turkey via the Aegean Sea in one year. Now it’s (so far) 1 million a week coming from Ukraine. The majority are women, children (according to estimates, 40 percent of the refugees) and old people. Ukraine bans men of military age from leaving the country. The geographical proximity and the great willingness to help in the receiving countries increase the influx.
Nobody knows how long the flight movement will last, it depends on the duration and course of the war. But you have to expect the worst in this regard. After the attackers failed to take the large cities of the Ukraine by storm, the failed blitzkrieg turned into a costly trench warfare. The Russians will then try to exhaust the defenders with constant shelling and to demoralize the population. Such fights can be sustained for many months.
Terrorizing civilians is part of this warfare. She wants to put pressure on the receiving countries with the ongoing refugee movement and divide the EU on migration policy.
Rapid EU response
However, this did not happen, at least in the short term. The member states reacted very quickly to the flight from Ukraine and activated the “mass influx directive” for the first time on March 3rd.
This gives refugees protection in the EU for a year without further ado and without complex asylum procedures. The stay can be extended to three years. The refugees have immediate access to the job market, to social services and their children to the schools of the host country. The regulation, which is now coming into force for the first time, was created in 2001 after the experiences from the Yugoslav wars and requires a qualified majority of the member states. Now everyone was for it.
Refugees are free to move around the EU and choose their destination country. However, this freedom of movement does not apply within the host country. Those seeking protection can and are now also assigned a place to stay there.
The migration specialist Nadine Biehler from the German Foundation for Science and Politics describes the freedom of movement as an advantage. The refugees chose their destination in such a way that they could count on the maximum support from family, friends and diaspora networks. According to Biehler, this “self-organization” of refugees and helpers would relieve the state structures, at least in the short term. In addition to Poland, where an estimated 1 million Ukrainians live, the largest diaspora communities in Europe are in Italy (235,000 people), the Czech Republic (162,000), Germany (134,000) and Spain (107,000).
A problematic side effect of this self-organization is that refugees are often not registered. Especially since the authorities in countries with high growth such as Poland and Germany are already overwhelmed with the registration of those seeking help. Experts point out that registration is very important so that the authorities can plan and prepare accommodation, care and services. Above all, women and children must also be protected from exploitation by abusive “helpers”. And finally, the registration should also unmask asylum policy free riders of the crisis.
Main problem: the distribution of refugees
The border countries of Ukraine are burdened differently by the arriving refugees. Calculated in absolute numbers, Poland takes in the most people with 2 million people seeking help. Measured against the total population, however, it is the small Moldova, a non-EU country with 2 million inhabitants, in which there are over 180 refugees for every 1000 inhabitants. However, many of them travel on to Romania in the EU after a short time.
Even when dealing with this wave of refugees, the biggest problem is the distribution of the refugees across the European countries. The migration expert Gerald Knaus proposes the creation of air bridges that distribute the refugees from the eastern border states and bring them to France, Spain or Portugal. According to Knaus, without a quick distribution, as only a look at the map shows, the largest number of Ukrainians will travel to Berlin or Vienna, which is comparatively close by. With 10,000 people arriving every day, Berlin is already extremely busy.
However, the governments in Italy and Greece point out that migration from Africa and via Turkey to their countries is also continuing. That limits the capacities for Ukraine refugees. The integration of the million refugees who came to Europe in 2015 from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries in the Middle East is by no means complete. In many respects it remains unclear how Europe will cope with the mammoth logistical, political and social task.
Arriving war refugees in Kraków. Registering the large number of people causes difficulties for the authorities.
Temporary refugee accommodation in a trade fair building in Hanover.
The question of distribution is also explosive because the population’s spontaneous willingness to help will soon be exhausted. Then sustainable state structures are required and probably also a binding mechanism of distribution.
This is exactly why every attempt to introduce an EU-wide asylum policy has failed. It is anything but certain whether the Eastern European states that have so far opposed this will now be available because they are now the ones who have to bear the heaviest burden.