The Paper's reporter Yan Songyang
In 2015, more than 1 million refugees came to Europe, causing a huge impact on European society and politics, welcoming refugees and opposing refugee groups are at odds with each other, governments are at odds, some anti-immigrant far-right parties have taken advantage of the rise, and many refugees have stayed and gradually integrated into local society... The legacy of the refugee crisis continues to this day.
In 2022, Europe ushered in an even greater wave of refugees. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) website, from February 24, when Russia launched military operations against Ukraine, more than 3.27 million refugees have flowed out of Ukraine, of which about 3 million have entered EU countries. This figure is far more than the number of refugees who entered Europe in 2015.
The governments and people of european countries quickly took action and provided all kinds of assistance to Ukrainian refugees. But behind the great enthusiasm, there are still many complex issues.
Passion and difficulty
According to data compiled by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ukrainian refugees are mainly going to neighboring countries in the west, including Poland, Romania, Moldova, Hungary and Slovakia, and Russia has also hosted more than 180,000 refugees. Most of the Ukrainian refugees are from EU countries and Schengen countries (Moldova is not part of the EU, Romania is a member of the EU but not a Schengen country), of which Poland hosts more than half of the refugees – more than 1.97 million people.
On March 13, 2022, local time, the fifth primary school in Przemyńr, Poland, was converted into a temporary shelter to accept refugees evacuated from Ukraine. Surging image
Ukrainian citizens would have been able to enter the EU visa-free for 90 days. After the outbreak of the fighting, the European Union for the first time introduced the "Interim Protection Directive" that has been established for more than 20 years, allowing people fleeing Ukraine to automatically obtain temporary residence status for one to three years without going through a complicated asylum procedure, and can enjoy local social benefits, education and work.
Attitudes in many European countries are also very positive. The Polish parliament passed a bill in March that would allow Ukrainians arriving in Poland to stay legally for 18 months, obtain a Polish identity number, and be able to work, receive benefits, health care and education in Poland. In addition, Ukrainian refugees receive a one-time subsidy, as do Poles and institutions that provide accommodation to Ukrainians on a daily basis. Polish Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek recently said nearly 30,000 Ukrainian children have been enrolled in School in Poland.
Many refugees will continue to move from Ukraine's neighbors to other countries. Additional trains between Poland and Germany allowed Ukrainian refugees to travel free of charge, and there were buses that took Ukrainian refugees from Moldova to Romania.
On March 17, 2022, local time, in Moldova, volunteers helped arriving Ukrainian refugees at a reception center. Surging image
As refugees continue to move westward, eastern Germany, near the Polish border, has recently hosted a large number of Ukrainian refugees. Franziska Giffey, the mayor of Germany's capital Berlin, said on March 15 that Berlin accepts about 10,000 refugees a day, and in addition to private accommodation, 1,000 refugees need to be resettled in government facilities every day, and she appealed to the German federal government and other states for assistance. In addition, a number of schools in Berlin are about to offer "welcome classes" for refugee children and teenagers to help them adapt to their environment and teach German.
Many Ukrainian refugees can turn to relatives and friends in other countries, some locals have voluntarily accepted refugees to live in their homes, and some public places such as gymnasiums have been converted into resettlement sites. But as more refugees pour in, resources such as accommodation, catering, and funding are likely to be strained. In particular, the main destination countries for Ukrainian refugees have accepted fewer refugees and the economy is relatively backward in Europe, which has caused great pressure on them.
According to the Polish news agency (PAP), Poland's deputy health minister, Waldemar Kraska, said on March 14 that if 1 million refugees were reimbursed for prescriptions and medical services, about 200 million Polish zlotys (about 300 million yuan) would be needed every month. ”
Since Ukraine prohibits men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country, most of the refugees leaving Ukraine are women and children, and their risk of abuse, trafficking and sexual assault is also high. According to media reports, female refugees were raped in Poland and Germany; at Berlin's Central Station, police and volunteers found suspicious people approaching female refugees, saying they could provide accommodation; and Polish organizations said they had received reports of missing children, human trafficking and illegal employment. Many places have warned refugees about this.
On March 9, 2022, local time, refugees fleeing Ukraine in Berlin, Germany, arrived at Berlin Central Station. Surging image
Where does discrimination come from?
Although European countries have warmly welcomed Ukrainian refugees with open arms, their attitude towards refugees has also been accused of "double standards".
The temporary residency granted by the EU to refugees is only available to Ukrainian citizens, foreigners with long-term residency in Ukraine and refugees in Ukraine, which cannot be enjoyed by citizens of most other countries. The Polish act on guarantees for Ukrainian refugees does not apply to third-country citizens who have fled Ukraine. The Polish Senate had proposed the inclusion of citizens of third countries in the process of enacting the bill, but the House of Representatives refused.
Poland has also been criticized for its discriminating attitude towards immigrants from different sources. In the second half of last year, a large number of Middle Eastern migrants came to the border between Belarus and Poland, hoping to enter Poland and the European Union, but Poland refused, set up martial law zones on the border, and used chemical sprays and high-pressure water guns to deal with migrants.
The attitudes many people have toward Ukrainian refugees today are very different from those they did towards middle eastern refugees in 2015, a distinction that is evident in political and media discourse, either explicitly or implicitly.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Petkov recently said that Ukrainian refugees are different from previous refugees in that they are "smart, educated, very knowledgeable" and "they are Europeans"; CBS reporters in the United States said that Kiev is a "more civilized and more European" city compared with conflict areas such as Iraq and Afghanistan; a reporter from BFMTV in France said on the program, "We are not talking about Syrians... It was europeans, and they fled in a car that resembled ours. Even Some European politicians known for their anti-immigrant rhetoric, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán and France's far-right presidential candidate Zemoor, have changed their attitudes toward Ukrainian refugees.
It is true that Ukraine and Western European countries are similar in culture, religion and ethnicity, and there are a large number of Ukrainians working and living in Western Europe, coupled with the long-term anti-Russian sentiment in Western Europe, prompting people and politicians to open their arms. Poland, for example, has historically had close ties with Ukraine, with more than 1 million Ukrainians living in Poland before the outbreak of the war, making it the largest group of immigrants in Poland.
Jeff Crisp, an assistant researcher at the University of Oxford's Refugee Research Centre in the United Kingdom and former head of the UNHCR's Policy Development and Evaluation Division, told www.thepaper.cn that there are several reasons for the difference in Europe's attitude toward refugees: Ukrainians are culturally closer to Europeans; Ukrainians are "victims" of Russian military operations, and the need to seek security in other countries is very clear Most Ukrainian refugees are women and children, and are less likely to be seen as "threats" than male refugees.
"After the events of 2015, European governments and citizens were generally very worried about the arrival of refugees and took many measures to keep refugees out of the Continent." "It's worth noting that for the reasons mentioned above, these worries disappeared in the face of Ukrainian refugees, and citizens are pushing the government to do more for refugees," Crisp said. ”
The long-standing shaping of discourse is also a reason behind it. Carola Richter, a professor of international communication at the Free University of Berlin in Germany, previously told the German Protestant News Agency (EPD) that the framework of media and political discourse has changed compared to 2015, with Ukraine portrayed as a "modern, European" country, while people from Islamic countries and sub-Saharan Africa have long been described as people with "very different cultures and incompatible values.".
Richter further explained to the surging news that for people in Germany, Poland and Ukraine's neighbors, the war is very close geographically compared to the conflicts in Libya, Syria or Yemen, so it is very "terrible". She said that "the extremely close distance that can be felt, and the geographical fact that the war took place in Europe" has once again inspired many people to participate in the aid. "In 2015, the compassion and enthusiasm for help [for refugees] was also very strong, but this time it was again strengthened due to the proximity."
Richter also noted that there are those who believe that Ukrainian refugees came directly to Germany and are therefore "real refugees"; they also believe that Syrian and Afghan refugees should go directly to their neighbors and cannot understand why they have traveled so long distances to Germany.
What is the future?
But will European enthusiasm fade? What should Ukrainian refugees do if the situation is not stable for a long time?
Richter previously told German media that the starting point for people to help at present is that the situation of refugees fleeing will not continue. "If it continues, Germany's enthusiasm for help is likely to decline and xenophobic rhetoric is likely to increase."
The New York Times reported that the 2015 refugee crisis demonstrated that public compassion would quickly dissipate. A 2017 paper by Researchers in Sweden and the United States found that donations to the Swedish Red Cross fund for Syrian refugees soared after the media published photos of Syrian boys' bodies on the beach in September 2015, but only five weeks later the number of donations fell back to pre-photo levels.
Will there be a large number of Ukrainian refugees finding work in Europe and staying for a long time? In fact, the EU gave Ukrainian refugees the right to work this time, and because of the deepening cooperation with the EU and the huge differences in the degree of economic development, a large number of Ukrainians worked in the EU and other Western European countries before the outbreak of the war. According to a 2021 report released by the Prague Process (a mechanism launched by the European Union to promote cooperation in migration management with partner countries), Ukraine is the largest source of foreign workers in the EU, and Ukrainians are mainly engaged in low-paid industries such as transport, agriculture, construction, catering and other low-paying industries in the EU, mainly young men, and mostly receive short-term residence and work permits for 3-5 months or 6-11 months.
Both Bulgaria and Hungary in Eastern Europe suffer from depopulation and labor shortages, and Agence France-Presse reported that they welcomed Ukrainian refugees. The Bulgarian Employers' Association wrote to the government saying that 200,000 Ukrainian refugees could be given jobs, especially those of Bulgarian descent who spoke Bulgarian.
However, many of the refugees who came to Western Europe this time were children and the elderly, and many refugees, especially women, needed to take care of their families alone, and how to find suitable jobs was also a difficult problem.
"A lot of employers just see Ukrainian refugees as cheap labor." German lawyer Martin Bechert told The German newspaper Le Monde. He warned that there may be employers who take advantage of the plight of refugees by not paying them a normal wage.
Crisp told The Paper that the refugee situation often lasts much longer than people estimate at the beginning, and even if the situation in the country of origin improves, some refugees will still choose to stay abroad. "Therefore, immediate measures should be taken to facilitate the integration of newly arrived refugees, including language, employment, housing, education, etc., and to ensure that family members can be reunited and live together."
Krysp believes that some women and children will be willing to return to Ukraine to reunite with their families as soon as the situation is safe, and some men who remain in Ukraine may leave Ukraine after being allowed to leave Ukraine and reunite with their wives and children in countries where they have taken refuge.
At present, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have received a large number of Ukrainian refugees, and the burden is relatively heavy, and whether EU member states can share the refugees is also a problem. After the 2015 refugee crisis, the EU's plan to apportion refugees among countries was rejected by Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and other countries. In the face of this wave of Ukrainian refugees, the measures of the refugee sharing plan have not yet been launched.
Kristp believes that the EU's past attempts to apportion refugees have been "very bad" and hopes that this time some sharing will be carried out spontaneously, allowing refugees in Poland, Hungary and Moldova to be transferred to Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Scandinavian countries.
Many have also called for attention not just for Ukrainian refugees in Europe. Those who remain in Ukraine, refugees in Russia, and refugees in other conflict zones around the world also need help.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said March 15 in Kabul, Afghanistan, that while the global focus on the situation in Ukraine is followed, "other situations requiring political attention and resources should not be forgotten or ignored, especially in Afghanistan." ”
Responsible editor: Zhang Wuwei Photo editor: Shi Jiahui
Proofreader: Ding Xiao