EU countries to receive another EUR3.5B for hosting refugees

The EU Council has adopted a legislative act making available an additional EUR 3.5 billion in total this year, which member states will receive in order to facilitate the hosting of refugees fleeing Ukraine due to the Russian aggression.

That’s according to the European Commission’s press service, Ukrinform reports.

The act introduces changes to increase pre-financing under the Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe (REACT-EU), one of the largest post-pandemic recovery programmes, to reinforce cohesion policy funds and the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD).

Specifically, pre-financing to be paid from REACT-EU in 2022 will increase from 11% to 15% for all member states, and from 11% to 45% for EU countries where the number of arrivals from Ukraine was greater than 1% of their population at the end of the first month following the Russian invasion.

These changes seek to alleviate the pressure on member states’ public budgets, so that they can better deal with the inflow of refugees.

On February 24, Russia launched an unprovoked full-blown invasion of Ukraine and has been massively bombarding and shelling Ukrainian cities and villages ever since. Russian soldiers have committed multiple atrocities against Ukrainian civilians in the territories they had occupied.