- European countries have granted temporary protection to nearly four million people that fled from Ukraine due to the Russian invasion that happened in 2022.
According to Eurostat, the European Office for Statistics, Germany has granted the status to 28 per cent of the total, representing over one million beneficiaries, followed by Poland, which granted the protection status to 995,035 – 25 per cent of the total and Czechia (331,850; eight per cent).
The number of beneficiaries across the EU has increased by 1.3 per cent, representing 51,010 more people, while countries where the increase was mostly noticed are Germany, Sweden and Czechia, recording two per cent increases, individually.
“Sweden’s large increase was mainly because the process to renew temporary protection statuses, which finished in March 2023, was delayed. This made the number of registered beneficiaries of temporary protection at the end of March seem lower than it actually was,” Eurostat explains.
Some countries, on the other hand, have experienced a decline in the number of beneficiaries of temporary protection status, with Poland recording the highest decrease – 4,700 fewer beneficiaries, followed by Portugal (-2 520), Estonia (-1 885) and France (-985).
In terms of the ratio of temporary protection beneficiaries per thousand people in April, Czechia recorded the highest numbers – 31.6, followed by Poland and Estonia (both 26.4) and Lithuania, while the corresponding figure at the EU was 8.9.
By April 2023, Ukrainian citizens represented 98 per cent of the beneficiaries of temporary protection. Adult women, mainly aged between 35 and 64, represented 47 per cent of all temporary protection beneficiaries in the EU, while children made up slightly more than one-third (35 per cent). On the other hand, adult men represented less than a fifth of the total, accounting for 18 per cent.
Since August, the number of beneficiaries has increased by 6.1 per cent, starting at 3.6 million and rising to 3.8 million in the following year, while in March, it reached a total of 3.83 million.
Initially, Poland was the main recipient country for applicants for temporary protection status, with 1.3 million of those being recorded in August alone.
However, those numbers changed one year after the Russian military in Ukraine occurred, with Germany becoming the main issuing country in February 2023.
In other words, over one million people have benefited from the temporary protection status in Germany, while these numbers dropped to 989,080 for Poland.
Main image: © Valentyn Natalenko | Dreamstime.com
