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"Historic agreement at the meeting of interior ministers: the EU agrees temporary protection to those fleeing the war in Ukraine".

With this message, the French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, celebrated the consensus this Thursday afternoon after a long meeting plagued with doubts, nuances, conditions and even threats of blockade.

With the decision,

the 27 will activate for the first time a standard available since 2001

with which to automatically give protection to all those who are fleeing the Russian invasion (but not regardless of their nationality).

Something that will allow them to work legally within the Union and access a series of rights, without the need to process asylum requests individually.

"Automatic protection for Ukrainians is a fact! The directive is activated for the first time in history. Unanimous. Historic," Belgian Sammy Mahdi celebrated.

The war in Ukraine has pushed the countries of the East, the members of Visegrad, to a radical change of attitude.

After years of refusing to accept refugees, closing borders, rejecting quota distribution systems,

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have opened the doors

wide for the arrival of tens or hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the invasion Russian.

One thing, however, remains: their mistrust of European international protection directives.

A million people have fled the country since the start of hostilities

, a volume and a speed unprecedented in decades.

Most are looking to their neighbors to the west and south, the EU members or Moldova.

Unlike the different waves that have occurred since 2015, due to the wars in Syria, Afghanistan or Africa, the community reaction is being very receptive.

But some governments, and especially neighboring ones, have shown this Thursday their reservations about using the European directive that would allow a very clear status to be given to all of them.

Legislation exists since 2001, but has never been used

.

The European Commission put it on the table this weekend at an extraordinary meeting of interior ministers and made it official on Wednesday in a proposal.

But the reluctance has been greater than expected.

"Historic decision right now. The EU is going to give temporary protection to all those who flee. The Union remains united to save lives," the responsible commissioner, the Swedish Ylva Johansson, has celebrated in any case.

Warsaw and Budapest believed that it is not necessary, that the Ukrainians do not want asylum or stay, but only temporary protection while the attacks last.

That they have links and family in many neighboring countries and that they will return home soon.

They argue in Brussels that activating the directive would cause unnecessary bureaucratic chaos, because despite the growing numbers, management is being fluid.

And that help was necessary, financing, but through other instruments that have already been used in the past.

Poland boasts that there are no refugee camps, going cold in winter, but that citizens are opening the doors of their houses.

No visas or biometric documents are requested at the borders.

And various governments, from Slovakia to the Czech Republic, passing through Germany or Austria,

they are giving free transport on trains to all those who want to enter the EU.

But above all, the members of Visegrad do not want, they did not want, to set a precedent.

The directive offers protection (as well as labor and social rights) from which Ukrainians would benefit

, but in theory also to anyone else who was in Ukraine, regardless of their nationality, something that is not liked in countries traditionally more hostile to immigration. from outside Europe and specifically Muslim.

That is why they have pushed to change the Commission's initial proposal, so that those who do not have a Ukrainian passport will not have that full protection, at least automatically because they have left Ukraine.

Hungary and Poland did not want the precedent of this activation, which they refused since 2015 even in the face of prolonged situations in times of war and destruction.

Because they know that now it will be easier to invoke it again if there is a crisis.

This Wednesday diplomatic sources admitted that they saw reservations and doubts in those capitals, but that there was a sufficient majority for the issue to go ahead.

And it has been like that, but touching the text, making amendments and putting nuances in the fine print of the application.

It allows to claim victory, but not the one that Brussels wanted or even the one that it is selling.

The lesson of the crisis in Syria, which brought millions of people to Turkey, Lebanon and the shores of Greece, Malta or Italy, is that trying to impose an asylum policy, and a system of distribution quotas for relocation and resettlement, is not it works.

Visegrad refused to take in refugees, and although he has lost in court, the reality is that he hardly compromised.

Creating a deep division, unrest, clashes, endangering the Schengen area.

Refugees are human beings and the system of forced quotas, as with milk or fishing, cannot be applied aseptically, or attempted by force, as has been seen.

The Commission's proposal, which has gone ahead despite everything, grants protection to Ukrainians and their families and with more nuances to others.

The Directive offers an umbrella, but above all that the same rules apply to everyone and throughout the EU, regarding the right to work, but also to medical care or education.

It is valid for one year, but extendable

.

And potentially millions of people could benefit.

In the case of non-Ukrainian citizens residing in the country at the time of the invasion, the agreement provides for different scenarios

.

Legal residents settled in the country will have to submit their requests and each European partner will decide whether to apply the directive and grant that automatic protection or whether the use of national regulations is appropriate.

Legal residents, but not settled, like the many students from Africa or Asia, will be repatriated, without the right to that automatic protection for a year, explain European sources.

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