Italy was one of the last European countries not to implement the EU Council’s decision on temporary protection for refugees from Ukraine. After twentyfour days, the Prime Minister, Mario Draghihas finally signed the decree transposing Directive 55 of 2001, starting with the persons to whom protection is to be conferred, Audience that the EU Council allows the States to expand and that the European Commission invites to expand. But most member countries and, as of today, Italy, declined the invitation and limited temporary protection to Ukrainians and those already enjoying refugee status or equivalent protection. and leaving out millions of foreigners legally residing in Ukraine. In particular those who demanded their exclusion and the possibility to deal with them on the basis of their national law Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia. But a month after the EU Council, with all due respect, that of the Visegrad bloc is being exposed as the dominant position Commission andUN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) which asked for protection for all people fleeing Ukraine. “This is confirmation that we cannot confuse the approach to the Ukraine crisis with a real change in the EU countries’ immigration orientation,” he comments Chiara FavilliExpert for European asylum policy and professor for EU law at theUniversity of Florence.
The temporary protection, which lasts for one year from March 4, 2022 and can be extended to a maximum of two, “applies to Ukrainian citizens residing in Ukraine before February 24, 2022, to stateless persons and thirdcountry nationals who are protected by international or protection before the start of the conflict and for their families”. This is what the Prime Minister’s Decree says, signed by the Prime Minister. The document also implements in Italy the directive adopted by the EU Council restricting certain groups of people in view of the Ukraine crisis acknowledges immediate protection that does not require the often lengthy process that those who apply for asylum go through in the traditional way. In this case, the request is made directly to the police headquarters, the release should be a matter of days and the outcome is guaranteed. Italy’s decision is in line with that of most European Union countries, which have only used it in a few cases the possibility of extending protection to other groups of people fleeing, starting with foreigners legally residing in Ukraine. In fact, they live among the Ukrainians five million foreigners, and a few days after the start of the Russian invasion, 100,000 had already fled the country. However, in most EU countries they are denied temporary protection. A choice that the lawyer Dario Belluccio (ASGI) defines “dangerously ethnocentric. If they want to stay in Europe, perhaps hoping to return to Ukraine as soon as possible, they must apply for asylum and prove that they cannot return to their country of origin permanently and safely. A path that will in all likelihood trigger secondary flows, including irregular ones, between European countries chosen on the basis of the permeability of immigration laws.
Although the emergency calls for the highest level of coordination, the European Union is once again moving in no particular order, unable to apply the Refugee Protection Directive consistently. In fact, the implementation of Italy completes a dramatically heterogeneous picture. countries like Spain, Croatia, Finland and Netherlands have decided to extend the application of protection to holders of permanent residence permits, acquired for example for study or work, and who Germany it was further extended to persons who had not yet received permanent residence or international protection in Ukraine. But that’s all. The other countries, including Italy in the queue, preferred to apply their national laws to nonUkrainians and entrust people who cannot return to their country of origin the long time frame and the uncertain outcome of the asylum procedure. But only a handful of countries appeared to oppose the European Commission’s original proposal to offer protection to all people fleeing Ukraine. And those who, on the eve of the EU Council, agreed to vote on the Commission’s exclusive proposal, it could have extended the application of protection at the time of implementation the policy. But no. What if Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Norway and Slovenia they stopped at the categories expressly named by the Council, namely Ukrainians and holders of international or equivalent protection, many other states have decided to apply the directive restrictively.
In countries like that Swedenthe Slovakiathe LithuaniaL’Estonia and the Bulgariabut also inside Poland and in France, the legislation transposing the Directive often does not even cover Ukrainian citizens, at most mentioning those who were already refugees or holders of another protection right in Ukraine. Not even me permanent residents, a fringe and elite category but specifically mentioned by the Council, fall under the decisions taken by most EU countries. In fact, the French transposition law explicitly speaks of “individual interviews in the prefecture to really prove that they cannot return to the country of origin. An attitude confirmed by the refusal of thirdcountry nationals expelled from Ukraine at the Ventimiglia border and by the accusations Amnesty International who just today accuses France of unequal treatment of Ukrainians and Afghans. “Unfortunately, the Ukraine crisis is proving to be a bubble, no change of tempo on the part of Europe in immigration and asylum policies, explains Professor Favilli. Which underscores a paradox: “It was precisely in the course of solidarity with the Ukrainian population that the pact on immigration and asylum, which had been discussed in the European Parliament for a long time, was finally passed. But the measures contained in this pact they are all the result of this logic of sparse cooperation and noninclusion: The pact tends to support exactly the kind of approach that governments have also confirmed on this occasion”.
Notwithstanding the EU Commission’s guidance on the application of the Directive “the Commission encourages Member States to use their discretion and to include broader categories of people in their implementing legislation” it remains to be seen how national legislation will be applied to those displaced by the conflict, that do not fall under temporary EU protection. In Poland, to name just the country to which most of the displaced persons from Ukraine have had to enter in recent years the asylum applications accepted in the first instance did not exceed 16 percent. And in the second instance it is 99 percent of those rejected. The Commission wrote again on March 17: “If Member States choose to grant another form of adequate protection under Article 2(2) of the Council Decision, that protection must be consistent with the guarantees of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and of the Spirit of the Directive, and the Human dignity must be guaranteed at all times. As for the people covered by return assistance, the Commission recommends the issuance of national permits of limited duration to allow these people access to essential services. All things that could have been defined by the decision of the EU Council, and which instead, adds ASGI’s Belluccio, “not even the states have shown that they know how to solve internally to avoid the problems , which entails the selective application of protective risks “Create”. And in this movement, in no particular order, states seem to be pointing in the direction of the Visegrad states more often than that of the European Commission.