Deep Dive Ukraine: How EU’s Temporary Protection Policy is Perceived by its Recipients

PROTEMO project is focused on protective policies that may be considered protective “based on the quality of the policy, because political leaders frame them as such, or because few opposing policies effectively challenge them” (Albertson & Gadarian, 2015). The Council of the EU Implementing Decision 2022/382 of 4 March 2022 introducing temporary protection (TP) for Ukraine residents after Russia’s full-scale invasion is seen as an advanced humanitarian and protective policy. Comparing to traditional EU system of asylum, TP has provided its beneficiaries with a wide range of benefits, such as an immediate access to residence, job market, health care, banking. It has also preserved the right for the secondary movements within the EU and, at least in practice, it even allows temporary return to the country of origin, in contrast to usual Dublin-based rules. On the one hand, this inequality led to multiple statements about discrimination, on the other, introduction of TP Directive has vividly shown the possibility of a different approach in managing the asylum system (“paradigm shifting”). Careful investigation of all sides of the new approach, including individual and collective emotional dynamics that accompany it, is important to understand its advantages and shortcomings. “Deep Dive Ukraine” of the PROTEMO project focuses on the emotional needs, ontological (in)security and sense of belonging among beneficiaries of Temporary Protection in four EU countries: Portugal, Italy, Germany and Poland. The paper is based on preliminary data of approximately 40 semi-structured interviews and 12 focus-groups with refugees from Ukraine from different regions, having Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian citizenship, speaking different languages and of variable social background. “Deep Dive Ukraine” is looking for answers to questions how “protective policies” aimed at refugees are perceived by their beneficiaries, and what shifts in emotional needs, emotional reactions and sense of belonging of these beneficiaries accompany implementation of “protective policies”.