European Commission will allocate €65 mln to countries hosting Ukrainian refugees

The European Commission has announced allocating over €65 million to four countries hosting Ukrainians fleeing Russian aggression.

Rubryka writes about this, referring to the European Commission website.

As noted, funds will be allocated from the Asylum, Migration, and Integration Fund to support Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Romania, which host Ukrainian refugees.

Assistance is provided to countries for:

• easing the financial burden on the refugee adaptation system in the mentioned countries,
• enabling them to provide people under EU temporary protection with an appropriate level of support, services, and assistance.

Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Romania can use this additional funding to:

• transition from providing refugees with "collective" shelter to individual resettlement in the private sector by providing Ukrainians with financial assistance for the transition period,
• access to language training,
• to social and medical services, etc.

The European Commission added that from December 18, relevant agencies of these countries, NGOs, and international organizations involved in such projects can start their implementation. At the same time, the European Commission will maintain control over the use of allocated funds through the relevant financial services of the EU.

In addition, a new edition of the Migration Atlas was published on the EC website, which contains detailed information on migration in 27 EU countries and 171 other countries worldwide.

This year's special section is devoted to Ukraine.

"The 2023 edition includes a special thematic section on EU solidarity with displaced people from Ukraine. It demonstrates that commitment and resilience in support of Ukraine and its displaced citizens remains strong at the European Union level.

According to Eurobarometer data as of August 2023, 79 percent of people (in Europe) are in favor of accepting people fleeing war in the EU," the message emphasized.

As noted in the thematic Ukrainian section of the Atlas, as of August 2023, after the beginning of Russian aggression, almost 4.2 million citizens of Ukraine used the status of temporary protection on the territory of EU countries, of which 63% (2.6 million) were women, 37 % — men.

About a third of the total number of these people are teenagers under the age of 18 (16 and 17 percent in each gender category, respectively).

The largest group among Ukrainian displaced persons in the EU are women aged 35 to 64 – 26 percent; the share of men of this age is about 10 percent.

Somewhat smaller proportions are in the age category of 18-34 years — they account for 17 and 8 percent of the total number of refugees, respectively.

The largest number of people who have benefited from temporary EU protection are:

• Germany (1,175,695 people, or 28 percent of the total number of Ukrainian refugees),
• Poland 960,550 people, or 23 percent),
• Czech Republic (365,085 people, or 9 percent).

Note that as of the end of October 2023, 4.24 million refugees from Ukraine received temporary asylum in the European Union. Almost half of the Ukrainian refugees are women (46.4%), one-third are children, and one-fifth are adult men (20.2%).

According to the European Commission, the Russian military aggression against Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, had serious consequences not only for Ukraine and its neighboring countries but also on a more global level. As of December 2022:

• from 3.6 to 5.4 million Ukrainians were displaced within Ukraine itself,
• while about 7 million left Ukraine.

In total, according to statistical data, as a result of the Russian war against Ukraine, 25 to 30 percent of the entire population of Ukraine found themselves in the status of displaced persons.