'Temporary protection' leaves Ukraine refugees in limbo and liable to rightwing backlash

Activation of the EU-wide Temporary Protection (TP) mechanism following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine was one of the few success stories in the operations of the Common European Asylum System in recent years.

Despite earlier concerns regarding the mechanism’s viability, it proved capable of providing millions of Ukrainians with meaningful protection across the Union mere days after the full-scale invasion.

In the conflict’s fourth year, however, the very features of TP that made it such a convenient instrument for tackling rapid, large-scale displacement can now be seen as flaws.

The periodic extension mechanism effectively traps Ukrainian refugees in a perpetually ‘temporary’ situation and leaves them vulnerable to anti-Ukrainian sentiment.

From emergency to perpetual ‘temporariness’

Temporary protection is a mechanism designed specifically to respond to situations that would overwhelm ‘regular’ asylum systems.

Instead of requiring everyone to submit individual asylum claims, TP confers immediate protection and meaningful status on, in principle, all those displaced, as defined in the Council implementing decision.

The underlying assumption of TP is that, after its activation and operation for a limited period, temporary protection either ends when return to the country of origin becomes possible, or transitions into a more lasting status.

It has been described as ‘a prelude’ to the normal operation of the 1951 Refugee Convention, on which the Common European Asylum System is largely based. The periodical extension mechanism was embedded in the Temporary Protection Directive precisely to prevent TP’s entrenchment beyond what is justified by the crisis situation.

It has now been more than three years since TP was first triggered.

The European Council, prompted by the EU Commission, has taken the controversial decision to extend it beyond what was previously assumed to be a three-year limit.

The dominant interpretation of Article 4 of the directive was that it functioned as a safeguard, making it impossible to rely on periodic extensions of TP for longer than three years.

Having crossed that bridge, it is now theoretically possible to continue relying on extensions in the years ahead, leaving millions of Ukrainians dependent on political whims in Brussels and in the member states tasked with implementing TP in their domestic jurisdictions. 

Poland

Consider the case of Poland, where the issue of entitlements for Ukrainian refugees has been especially contentious in recent months.

Quickly branded a ‘humanitarian superpower’ in 2022, Poland is now increasingly turning against Ukrainian refugees, and a recent debate on yet another extension of TP became a pretext to further dilute their rights.

Anti-Ukrainian sentiment, brewing for years since 2022 mainly outside mainstream politics, came to the fore during the 2025 presidential campaign.

Tellingly, it was an ostensibly liberal candidate — Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski — who, in an apparent pitch to rightwing voters, first proposed conditioning some of Ukrainians’ social benefits on their participation in the job market.

Setting aside the senselessness of this, it inevitably backfired when the new president — nationalist Karol Nawrocki — challenged the ruling liberals to deliver on their promise.

Using his veto power, he refused to sign into law the bill that would have extended the Polish incarnation of TP beyond September — leaving hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in the country fearing they might become undocumented migrants and, understandably, flooding the authorities with applications for alternative residence statuses.

The government was effectively forced to propose another version of the extension bill — one that strips Ukrainians who do not participate in the job market of certain social entitlements, and this time, the president agreed to it.

The president put forward his own extension bill, which includes restrictions on Ukrainians’ social rights and, among other more or less absurd measures, the criminalisation of ‘propagating the ideology of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists’ — further fuelling deep-rooted Polish-Ukrainian animosities. 

What’s next?

Given the above, there is a persistent need to decouple the question of the status of Ukrainian refugees across the Union from the political atmosphere of the moment.

Although TP provides them with enhanced rights, it simultaneously keeps them in a state of perpetual ‘temporariness’ and leaves them vulnerable to shifting tides in European and national politics.

In this context, the recently adopted Council Recommendation on a coordinated approach to the transition out of temporary protection for displaced persons from Ukraine comes far too late.

It does, nevertheless, envisage the eventual phasing out of TP (currently in place until at least 4 March 2027) and encourages member states to allow Ukrainians to transition to alternative residence statuses and to facilitate voluntary returns to Ukraine.

Much remains unanswered in the recommendation.

It appears to lean toward phasing out TP in favour of either return or statuses primarily based on the economic activity of Ukrainians.

This is concerning for those who are unable or unwilling to return, yet also ineligible to secure employment-based residency or a similar status.

In this context, it is unclear why the recommendation does not encourage the grant of ‘regular’ protection statuses, in the form of refugee status or subsidiary protection.

Finally, the eventual termination of TP may provide an opportunity for governments to further restrict Ukrainians’ rights. It is thus crucial to ensure that the strictly voluntary nature of eventual returns is respected.

That said, the debate on the termination of TP is long overdue.

In the fourth year after the 2022 invasion, it is no longer necessary to rely on an emergency-based mechanism, particularly because its periodic extension mechanism leaves Ukrainians in a protracted limbo, vulnerable to rising anti-immigrant trends.

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