• Sánchez visits the border with Russia to reinforce the Government's commitment to NATO despite Podemos

The Government will immediately give residence and work permits, health, education, accommodation and financial support to Ukrainians who are in an irregular situation in Spain.

The Council of Ministers has approved this Tuesday an agreement that includes these citizens within the group that will be able to benefit from the 2001 Temporary Automatic Protection Directive that the Council of Interior Ministers of the EU decided to activate last Thursday for the first time.

Then "very general terms were agreed to satisfy all the countries", explain sources from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior.

Now Spain has developed them "to the maximum that were allowed" and has expanded the scope of application of the directive to increase the rights of various groups.

This was announced by the Government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, at the press conference after the Executive meeting, where the assumptions that were agreed on Thursday have been expanded.

Interior cannot specify how many Ukrainians are in an irregular situation in Spain because "they are not registered anywhere."

As of January 1, 2021, the INE counted 111,430 registered Ukrainians.

Of them, almost 95,000 had a residence permit at the end of June of that year, according to figures from the Secretary of State for Migration.

That means that there could be about 16,000 Ukrainians without proper documentation, although this estimate is not official.

In addition, within the agreement of the Council of Ministers, the scope of application of the directive has also been extended to nationals of third countries with effective residence in Ukraine at the time of the invasion (February 24).

The directive was limited to nationals of Ukraine and third countries with long-term (five-year) residence permits in this country.

But now this long-term residence will not be required and, in addition, the spouses of those who request protection and their minor children will be included, according to Rodríguez.

The Government is working on a legal instrument that allows the application of this temporary protection directive immediately, by simplifying the procedures, so that displaced persons who arrive in Spain can obtain the rights granted by the directive in a "form simple and fast", according to Interior.

The directive was approved in 2001, after the Balkan war, but had never been applied, not even in Syria, due to the reluctance of some countries.

One of its objectives is to prevent the asylum system from collapsing, which has accumulated a backlog of around 80,000 files.

Without the directive, the asylum seeker only acquires the rights when he is granted administrative refugee status, while now he is automatically granted international protection status without analyzing his individual circumstances one by one, which speeds up the process.

You can also request asylum, but from the first moment you will enjoy a residence and work permit for one year that can be extended, access to education, medical assistance, social assistance, accommodation and financial support.

It is estimated that two thousand Ukrainians could have arrived in Spain from the war, but the Interior does not know how to specify it because the computer mechanism that will register them has not yet been launched.

"It will be done in the next few days," the sources indicate.

These Ukrainians who are arriving, in any case, are not asking to be in the reception system, but are being housed by relatives who were already here, according to sources from the Ministry of Inclusion.

This department has enabled centers in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), Barcelona and the City of Light in Alicante to manage the reception and distribute Ukrainians throughout Spain.

Rodríguez has advanced that the system has about 12,000 places (3,000 of them, from the Ministry itself, and the rest offered by the Autonomous Communities) and up to 5,000 hospital beds.

Conforms to The Trust Project criteria

Know more

  • Ukraine

  • Syria

Good Education Felipe de Vicente: "Teachers are going to have to assess whether or not the students are sexist"

War in UkraineThe Government demands "much more rigorous" sanctions from the EU against Putin

CompaniesThe Spanish agri-food sector trembles before the closure of factories and ports in Ukraine: in a month there will be no oil or cereals

See links of interest

  • War Ukraine, direct

  • direct women's day

  • Last News

  • Best schools Spain

  • Translator

  • Topics

  • Work calendar 2022

  • events

  • How to do

  • Women's Day Phrases

  • Athletic Club - Levante

  • Real Sociedad B - Sporting Gijon

  • Tottenham Hotspur - Everton

  • Red Star - Real Madrid