Publish: 03 Mar 2022, 04:45 pm
Photo: Collected
The EU is expected to rapidly approve a protection mechanism
for war refugees fleeing Ukraine -- so far numbered at one million -- and to
also set up a humanitarian hub in Romania, officials said Thursday.
The moves by the European Union came in parallel to its
muscular sanctions on Russia imposed in successive waves over the course of the
invasion, now in its eighth day.
EU interior ministers turning up for a Brussels meeting on
how to address the growing wave of Ukrainian refugees said they expected the
gathering to give political assent to a Temporary Protection mechanism.
The mechanism was drawn up two decades ago, in response to
the wars in the former Yugoslavia, but never used.
The proposal by the EU's executive would give refugees from
Ukraine and family members a residence permit and the right to access work and
education for an initial year, renewable every six months after that.
Currently, Ukrainians with passports bearing biometric data
have only the right to visit the EU's Schengen area for up to three months,
without the right to work.
If agreed, as expected, by a majority of EU countries, the
legal document enshrining the temporary protection mechanism for those fleeing
the war in Ukraine could be enacted "in the coming days," French
Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin said.
His German counterpart, Nancy Faeser, called it "a
paradigm shift" for the European Union, which has long struggled to reform
its asylum rules.
At the same time, European Commission chief Ursula von der
Leyen tweeted that the EU was setting up a "humanitarian hub" in
Romania, one of four EU countries bordering Ukraine.
"Protecting the people fleeing (Russian President
Vladimir) Putin's bombs is not only an act of compassion in times of war. This
is also our moral duty, as Europeans," she said.
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