EU extends temporary protection for Ukrainian refugees for one year

“The EU will support the Ukrainian people for as long as it takes. The prolongation of the protection status offers certainty to the more than 4 million refugees who have found a safe haven in the EU,” Fernando Grande-Marlaska Gómez, Spanish acting minister of the interior, said following the meeting of the ministers.

By the adopted decision, the Council of EU agreed to extend the temporary protection for people fleeing from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine from 4 March 2024 to 4 March 2025.

As noted, following today’s political agreement, the Council will have to formally adopt the decision to extend the temporary protection. This will happen once the legal scrubbing and translation in all EU languages has taken place.

As reported, after Russia unleashed full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union activated for the first time the so-called Temporary Protection Directive, which granted Ukrainian citizens fleeing the war the right to stay legally in the EU, access to social services, including healthcare and education, as well as the right to employment.

It was supposed to be valid for a year. It was later extended until March 2024.

Recently, the European Commission proposed to extend until 2025 the effect of temporary protection for citizens of Ukraine, mainly women and children, who were forced to leave for EU countries to escape shelling.