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BRUSSELS, June 13 () –
This Thursday, the Interior Ministers of the European Union reached a political agreement to extend until March 2026 the temporary protection that the European Union already guarantees until March 2025 to Ukrainian refugees who arrive on community soil fleeing the war launched by Russia. against Ukraine.
The ministers meeting in Luxembourg have thus given the green light to the proposal presented at the beginning of the week by the European Commission, although the extension will not be formally adopted until the end of this month of June, once the legal-linguistic review required by the revision is completed. of the rule.
The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, expressed his “satisfaction2 at the meeting for the extension, while recalling that Spain is the fourth country in the European Union that has granted the most requests for temporary protection in this crisis, with more than 200,000 Ukrainian refugees settled in the country, according to a statement from the Ministry.
The temporary protection mechanism, which was created after the Balkan war but had not been activated until the war in Ukraine, guarantees that displaced people under this umbrella can move freely within the European Union in search of shelter, with rights such as Guaranteed work and stay permit.
The protection was activated for the first time in March 2022 and in principle could only be extended annually for a maximum of three years, which is why the maximum term under the current framework is running out.
However, the regulation contemplates the possibility that “if the reasons for protection persist”, the European Commission can propose new one-year extensions so that the Twenty-Seven can decide by qualified majority whether to accept it.
In this context, the Community Executive presented on Tuesday a proposal to extend until March 2026 the special protection that the EU currently grants to around 4.2 million people arriving from Ukraine, a third of them minors.
In light of the “continued attacks” that Russia directs against civilian and critical infrastructure in Ukraine, there are still no “safe and stable” conditions for those who fled the war to return to the attacked country, which is why Brussels defends that the extension It is a “necessary and appropriate response to the current situation.”
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