The EU may strip Ukrainian men of the right to live and work in the EU — but not all of them
Euractiv reports this, citing internal EU Council documents.
This proposal emerged during discussions on the future EU Temporary Protection Directive, which allows Ukrainians to live and work in Europe without having to go through national asylum procedures. The mechanism was introduced following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 and is currently in force until March 2027.
The EU wants to narrow the scope of people covered by the mechanism. They plan to exclude men of conscription age or people who left Ukraine illegally from the list. However, such restrictions are proposed to apply only to new applicants seeking temporary protection status.
Some EU governments are concerned that “a growing proportion of new arrivals are men of conscription age”. Several countries believe that the scheme should be reviewed “also in the interests of Ukraine” — both to support its resistance to Russian aggression and for the country’s future reconstruction.
As a reminder, it was previously reported that the Czech Republic plans to tighten the rules for Ukrainian refugees.
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