EU countries struggle to offer basic services to refugees under protection law

The initial reception of Ukrainian refugees in the EU after the Russian invasion was smooth and efficient, but there are severe limitations facing the provision of basic services, a report by Caritas Europa published on Tuesday (6 June) revealed.

The report found that many member states are facing difficulty in providing access to housing, jobs, healthcare, welfare and education, despite these services being at the heart of the EU’s temporary protection benefits.

The EU’s Temporary Protection Directive provides the rights to access basic needs, such as housing, health, work, education, and welfare, in an event of a massive influx of refugees. The directive was adopted in the early 2000s but was activated for the first time in March 2022, a few days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

Since then, roughly 8 million people have fled from Ukraine to EU member states, while about 5 million benefited from the EU temporary protection scheme and other similar measures at the national level.

In its report, Caritas, a confederation of Catholic humanitarian aid organisations, assessed the situation of those Ukrainian refugees in the first year of protection and detected a quick and prompt response, particularly from countries neighbouring Ukraine, to the situation.

“Registration of people to access temporary protection has been smooth, efficient and fast despite the large number of arrivals, especially compared to the registration of asylum seekers,” the report explains.

However, administrative and practical obstacles were noted, as well as certain forms of discrimination. For instance, stateless people from Ukraine without a valid passport struggle to get temporary protection, while “structural discrimination towards Roma” often prevents them from accessing the scheme.

“It is also interesting to stress that in several countries there is lack of transparency behind the grounds for refusal to access temporary protection,” the report said.

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Housing

Affordable housing is increasingly limited in swathes of Europe due to surging inflation. Similarly, access to social housing is lower due to a lack of accommodation services provided by national governments.

These problems also affect refugees from Ukraine who manage to find temporary accommodation but have then struggled to access affordable housing.

In several member states, having a stable residence address is the minimum requirement to access health, labour market, welfare and other benefits that the temporary protection directive foresees.

The Caritas report criticised the “lack of long-term planning by the state to ensure a transition to independent housing, which leaves people to their own devices to navigate an often saturated and expensive housing market system and to overcome administrative and language barriers”.

Health

“In theory, people under temporary protection must have access to healthcare, but in practice access to public healthcare services is often difficult and restricted in several countries, where emergency services are the only option to receive care,” the report explained, arguing that both administrative and language barriers can prevent Ukrainians from benefiting from healthcare systems.

Many national healthcare systems are facing difficulties due to shortages of specialised staff.

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Education

Meanwhile, many children from Ukraine have struggled to access education since the war started due to “lack of places in schools, shortages of teachers, administrative barriers to enroll, language barriers, long journeys to reach schools, and change of schools linked to relocation to different places,” Caritas reported.

At the beginning of the 2022/2023 academic year, about 500,000 Ukrainian children were enrolled in schools across the 27 EU member states, according to European Commission data.

UNICEF estimates around 3.9 million of registered refugees across Europe are children.

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Labour market

Despite the temporary protection law providing access to the job market without the need to apply for a work permit, many obstacles to employment were found, particularly for women whose male partners had remained in Ukraine.

These vulnerabilities, combined with “the need to rapidly earn a salary and the lack of awareness about workers’ rights may force them to accept employment with exploitative working conditions, low salary and short-term contracts, which will not suffice to cover the costs of their accommodation and other needs,” Caritas argued.

Recommendations

The report presents a series of final recommendation to both EU and national institutions. In Particular, Caritas asks the European Commission to “prepare a proposal for a Council Implementation Decision on the extension of the TPD [temporary protection directive] until March 2025 and anticipate a coordinated transition out of TPD after 2025”.

A series of recommendations are dedicated to the implementation of the welcoming system of member states, where Caritas asks to address the shortage of resources at local and national level.

[Edited by Benjamin Fox/Alice Taylor/Silvia Ellena]