According to the donor organizations, the change may not be permanent. The Europe Letter covers key EU issues every Friday. Subscribe to the full letter in your email.
Anna Saraste,
Janne Toivonen
BERLIN A man with a young woman steps on the counter at a dental station in Berlin. A woman listens to a head tilted message on her phone.
– We were told we could come here for an inspection. He is from Ukraine, the man explains to the employee sitting behind the plexiglass.
He slides the blue-covered passport under the glass. The nurse scans it and returns it to the woman. The duo moves into the waiting room.
The woman is one of 4.8 million Ukrainians who have fled the war in their home country to the rest of Europe.
For them, the EU has, for the first time in its history, activated temporary protection Directive (switch to another service)which entitles you to live and work in the EU for at least a year.
During the war of aggression in Russia, 7.2 million people have already had to flee violence in Ukraine. Some of them are internally displaced persons.
Here in Germany, attempts have been made to make the lives of Ukrainian refugees as smooth as possible. Ukrainians are allowed to travel without a ticket on long-distance trains and buses and to use medical and social services free of charge.
In Berlin alone, hundreds of thousands of people have provided their sofas and guest rooms for refugees to use.
Poland has traditionally had a sluggish attitude towards immigrants. Now a large number of Poles and the country’s political leadership are spectacularly involved in helping the Ukrainians.
IN THE YEAR 2015 Syria was in the midst of a bloody civil war and the economic situation in many countries in the Middle East and Africa deteriorated. Millions of migrants went to Europe.
Many of them spent their first months in EU countries detained in closed reception centers – not on the couches of volunteers.
The question arises about double standards. Even now, students with an African background who fled the war in Ukraine have reported experiences of discrimination at the EU’s borders.
Ukrainians, on the other hand, have been moving to the EU to work and study for years. Since 2017, they have been able to travel 90 days without a visa within the EU, which has increased travel and exploration on both sides.
As the majority of men cannot leave Ukraine due to general mobilization, the newcomers have been mainly women, the elderly and children. In 2015, newcomers were above all young men from religious and cultural backgrounds that Europeans do not consider to be the dominant culture of their countries.
MANY ORGANIZATIONS have called for a permanent extension of the solidarity shown to Ukrainians to others in need.
Refugee assistance in line with European values could continue to mean less bureaucracy and barbed wire fences, but instead humane treatment and free dental check-ups.
What does the EU and Europe have this week? From then on, assembled by ‘s EU special editor Janne Toivonen.
Coming soon: Mélenchon v Macron, Estonian government crisis
On Sunday the first round of the French parliamentary elections is held. The familiar situation of the April presidential election continues: how the president is doing Emmanuel Macronin the center-right alliance?
It is now being challenged by the successful left in April as its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon – we’ll talk about it.
Will it survive An Estonian political node? In the southern neighborhood, negotiations are under way to form a new government.
Sunday starting with the World Trade Organization meeting in Geneva. At the beginning and end of the meeting, EU foreign trade ministers will also meet. As topics (go to another service) relations with China and the United States and the consequences of the Russian invasion.
Next week is the week of the Council of Ministers in the EU anyway. Towards the end of the week, the Eurogroup and finance ministers, among others, will meet.
They are being talked about, among other things, by the EU budget: the margin for maneuver of the current financial framework has already been used up in ongoing crises. There may be a debate ahead about the need for extra money.
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