EU member states welcome proposal to extend temporary protection for Ukrainian refugees

On 13 June, the Council of the European Union welcomed the European Commission’s proposal to extend until March 2026 the temporary protection for more than 4 million Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s war of aggression.

The temporary protection mechanism was triggered on 4 March 2022 – only a few days after Russian armed forces launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine – and was due to run until 4 March 2025. 

The mechanism provides immediate and collective protection to a large group of displaced persons who arrive in the EU and who are not in a position to return to their country of origin. People benefitting from temporary protection enjoy the same rights across the EU. These rights include residence, access to the labour market and housing, medical assistance, social welfare assistance, and access to education for children.

The EU’s temporary protection law sets minimum standards of protection. The actual level of assistance can vary from one member state to another. 

The proposal to further extend the temporary protection until 4 March 2026 comes in a context of volatility of the situation in Ukraine.

“As long as bombs are falling in Ukraine, the situation there is not safe,” said Nicole de Moor, Belgian State Secretary for Asylum and Migration, representing the Belgian Presidency in the Council of the European Union.

The Council will formally adopt the decision to extend the temporary protection once the legal scrubbing and translation into all EU languages has taken place.

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Press release