Polina Sidorenko, a 19-year-old Ukrainian student, was full of hope and anticipation when she returned to Kyiv at the end of August, after living as a refugee in Italy for five months. However, her plans to pick up the pieces of her shattered life at a prestigious university in Kiev were short-lived.
Just weeks after the return, the glimmer of normalcy that had temporarily been restored in the capital was shattered after Russia launched new missile attacks on key Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure - the most ferocious since the start of the war. The university where she studied drama was closed again. Sidorenko returned to Italy together with another close friend.
"The situation is terrible," Sidorenko said, adding that her other friends in Italy, who were thinking of returning home, have now given up on the idea. "Everything is getting worse and worse and they don't know what to do".
As winter approaches Europe and Russia continues its bombing of Ukraine's energy and water infrastructure, EU members are preparing for the arrival of even more Ukrainians like Sidorenko.
"Putin's goal is to create a refugee crisis and additional pressure on us," said Ilva Johansson, European Commissioner for Migration.
At the same time, as restrictions against the spread of Covid-19 ease and economic pressure mounts, Europe is seeing the largest influx of new migrants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia since the migration crisis of 2015-16, putting additional pressure on the EU and testing its political unity.
The combined pressures of these mass movements of people - which coincided with the growth of right-wing political influence in several member states - brought the topic of migration back to the very top of the European political agenda.
So far, Europe has maintained its open-door policy toward Ukrainian refugees, many of whom returned home immediately after the initial Russian coup was repelled. However, with refugee reception sites in many countries under pressure and fears of a new Ukrainian exodus, tensions are rising between member states over how to deal with illegal migrants - people who do not meet the legal requirements to enter the country - from other parts of the world.
Italy's new right-wing government, headed by Giorgio Meloni, is leading calls for tougher measures to repel illegal migrants and a new, more equal system for sharing the burden of accommodating new migrants - something the EU has failed to do for years.
"Political rhetoric regarding migration is escalating across Europe, which highlights the difficulties many member states are having in the process of finding solutions," said Alberto Horst Heidhart, migration specialist at the European Policy Center.
"We note the extraordinary situation in the refugee reception systems in many parts of the EU. The possibility of the arrival of new migrants from Ukraine, as well as from other parts of the world, could represent additional pressure for the authorities".
Cooler reception
The Europeans have won praise for their generous response to the first wave of refugees from Ukraine, spurred by the activation of a 20-year-old but previously unused power to provide "temporary protection" to refugees fleeing the conflict. In this way, Ukrainians immediately got the right to move freely within the EU, the right to work, and some kind of financial support.
"There was a general feeling in society of a kind of contribution to the heroic efforts of the resistance - the feeling of being part of something big, part of history," said Natali Toki.
Sidorenko was among 173 Ukrainians who fled the conflict through Italy - many of whom joined family and friends already in the country. Italian families and civic groups also opened their doors, donating supplies and helping displaced students enter the education system.
"There was a general feeling in society of a kind of contribution to the heroic efforts of the resistance - a feeling of being part of something big, part of history," said Natali Toki, director of the Institute of International Affairs in Rome.
Almost ten months after the invasion, the warm welcome is giving way to weariness as Europeans are under pressure from rising inflation and state budgets are strained.
Poles "are afraid of the economic situation and inflation and are increasingly irritated by what they see as the preferential treatment of Ukrainian refugees."
The number of refugees from Ukraine and other parts of the continent is astonishing. Between January and September, there were 4,4 million applications from Ukrainians for temporary protection in the EU - although hundreds of thousands are estimated to have returned. In addition, EU countries plus Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein received 680.640 asylum applications from nationals of countries including Syria, Afghanistan and parts of Africa and Asia - a 54 percent increase compared to the same period last year, according to data from the EU Agency for asylum.
Local authorities in charge of housing and supporting refugees are barely able to cope with the scale of the task. In Germany, where more than 1,1 million people have sought refuge this year, cities are scrambling to set up emergency shelters and use sports halls and hostels, reminiscent of the 2015-16 refugee crisis.
Municipal authorities are forced to build mobile homes and rent rooms in hotels for new refugees, and claim that they no longer have places in schools and kindergartens for refugee children, nor "integration courses" for adult refugees. Activists in Belgium say thousands of refugees are living on the streets of Brussels while the system fails to process their asylum claims in time. In Poland, where 1,3 million Ukrainians are registered for residence, the entire army of volunteers was initially hailed as a role model. However, while Warsaw's support for Kiev remains unwavering, Ukrainians fleeing to Poland will not find the kind of generous support they did in the spring.
Poles "are afraid of the economic situation and inflation and are increasingly irritated by what they see as the preferential treatment of Ukrainian refugees," said Piotr Buras, who heads the office of the European Council for Foreign Relations in Warsaw.
Polish authorities have now scrapped many of the direct subsidies offered to Ukrainians, including free access to public transport and one-off payments of 300 zlotys ($67) to over a million registered Ukrainians. From March, refugees staying in Poland for more than 120 days will have to pay 50 percent for each type of accommodation provided by the government.
In Przemyśl, one of the main transit towns for Ukrainians entering Poland, nothing has been done to improve the dilapidated station through which five trains a day pass to and from Ukraine.
"While the initial response from local authorities was impressive, there was no effort to add seats, heating or basic weather protection to ease Ukrainians arriving and waiting hours in the cold for trains," said William Fleming, a British campaigner at the charity. Karp, who helps Ukrainian refugees at border crossings.
Double standards and racism
Johansson, the Commissioner for Migration, says that for now the influx of migrants to the Union from Ukraine has only slightly exceeded the number of those returning to Ukraine, but the EU is making plans for the arrival of new migrants. "If millions of people come during the winter, it will of course be a big challenge, but I think we will manage well," she told the "Financial Times". Still, member states that bore the brunt of the first wave of refugees are worried. Some diplomats emphasize that although Ukrainian refugees can move freely within the EU, newly arrived migrants want to go to big cities where there are already a large number of refugees, which represents additional pressure on local authorities.
"It is clear to us that if there is new migration from Ukraine, a better distribution throughout Europe is necessary," said Nancy Feser, the German Minister of the Interior, last Thursday. "I want to emphasize again that this is an important area of solidarity".
In Italy, Meloni is increasingly complaining about the number of migrants coming from Africa and Asia who land on Italian shores in search of refuge and better economic opportunities. She and her coalition partners, including League leader Matteo Salvini, have long argued that the unregulated influx of migrants from Africa and Asia is a major threat to Italy's national security and integrity.
Now in power, they are demanding more help from Europe - including a strong single "defence" of the EU's external borders.
Under the European Union's so-called Dublin Agreement, asylum seekers will be examined and prosecuted in the country they first arrive in - a rule that Rome says puts extra pressure on Italy and other Mediterranean states given their geographic location. Last month, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Malta signed a joint letter calling for changes to the system.
Although France reached an initial deal to redeploy asylum seekers across the EU during its rotating presidency earlier this year, Italy was tight-lipped about the outcome, given that it is entirely voluntary and calls for 8.000 migrants to be redeployed across the bloc - a fraction of those that arrive.
"The relocations that have been carried out to date are completely insufficient, and the procedures themselves are long and cumbersome," Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi told the FT. "In the end, only Italy and other first entry countries take care of economic migrants from North Africa.
Almost 96 illegal migrants arrived in Italy via the Mediterranean Sea this year, which is 000 percent more than in the same period last year, according to data from the Italian Ministry of the Interior.
The easing of covid travel restrictions has allowed people to move freely through Africa to reach points from which they can set sail for Europe. At the same time, the cessation of hostilities in war-torn Libya has also allowed smuggling networks to resume their activities, claims Luka Barana, a migration expert at the Institute of International Affairs in Rome.
Shortly after taking office, Meloni's government sparked a crisis by refusing for nearly two weeks to allow NGO ships carrying rescued migrants to dock and disembark their passengers, arguing that their work also encourages human trafficking by fueling people's expectations that they will always be rescued at sea. .
Her government has called on Germany and Norway to take responsibility for the ships, which fly their national flags. Tensions between Italy and France flared last month after Rome refused to allow a ship carrying 231 migrants rescued from the Mediterranean to dock at an Italian port, forcing it to sail to France and disembark the passengers there.
"I'm afraid to say it, but it really has a lot to do with racism," Costa said. "It bothers me a lot. If I had a van full of blond-haired, blue-eyed children from Ukraine, I wouldn't have any problem. If I had eight unaccompanied black children fleeing war from Tigray, Sudan or Somalia, I'm in trouble because I'm doing something illegal ".
Andrea Kosta, one of the founders of the civil group Baobab Experience, which helps migrants, said that she notices double standards in Europe's warm reception of Ukrainian refugees, and the cold attitude towards those who come from other regions. Such an approach has consequences for the activists themselves, who may be accused of people smuggling for helping migrants coming across the Mediterranean.
"I'm afraid to say it, but it really has a lot to do with racism," Costa said. "It bothers me a lot. If I had a van full of blond-haired, blue-eyed children from Ukraine, I wouldn't have any problem. If I had eight unaccompanied black children fleeing war from Tigray, Sudan or Somalia, I'm in trouble because I'm doing something illegal ".
The issue of double standards has also been raised in Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries, which have taken in Ukrainians fleeing the war in Russia while erecting new blockades at their borders to prevent others from arriving.
Poland is now adding another fence on its border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, similar to the one built earlier this year along its 186-kilometer border with Belarus. The Polish government says the border walls are necessary to prevent Russia and Belarus from pushing illegal immigrants to the EU, but rights groups also say the effort is combined with the illegal expulsion of asylum seekers from the Middle East and other parts of the world.
"I note with concern that this approach of double standards has led to feelings of discrimination," said the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Felipe Gonzalez Martinez, after visiting Poland in July and praising its warm reception of Ukrainian refugees, but questioned the approach to the others.
In Slovakia, thousands of refugees, mostly from Syria, are now trapped along the country's border areas as Czech police prevent them from entering, while Hungary refuses to accept those who traveled to Slovakia via Hungary. Local residents complain about the refugees wandering the villages, while aid workers call on the authorities to help them urgently or provide them with safe passage to another country.
The EU is waiting for a new agreement on migration
As pressures mount on the EU, Johansson says he is optimistic that a long-discussed migration deal that would modify the Dublin deal to include a fairer way of distributing asylum seekers across the union - will be reached before the end of the current commission's term in 2024.
"They really see the need [to] have a proper European legal framework to deal with migration together," she said, highlighting the parallel work the EU is doing to facilitate the return of people deemed ineligible to stay in the Union.
Still, the EU remains deeply divided over migration, as demonstrated at a ministerial meeting in Brussels on Thursday when Austria vetoed a proposal to extend the border-free Schengen zone to Romania and Bulgaria. The blockade of Vienna caused a fierce reaction in Romania, where some politicians called for a boycott of Austrian companies.
In the meantime, the influx of new people who are driven from their homes by suffering and who want to enter Europe is not abating.
Recently, on a cold, rainy night in Rome, Costa's organization handed out packed dinners in plastic bags to poor migrants near one of the city's biggest bus stations. Among them was Avelki Nuru, a 28-year-old from Eritrea, who fled his home when he was 18 to avoid forced conscription into the army.
A year ago, he managed to cross the Mediterranean during a three-day trip in a boat with 300 other people. Since then he has been struggling to survive. "I don't have a job, I don't have papers and I sleep on the streets," he said.
However, despite all the difficulties, Nuru insists that he did the right thing when he came to Europe. "I knew it was dangerous, but I came here in search of a better life".
Translation. N. Bogetić
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