The European Union could reduce the refugee status protections it grants to military age Ukrainian men because “the war needs to be fought and won”, and should crack down on Russians coming to the bloc for luxury shopping trips and beach holidays, ministers were told.
A European Union Justice and Home Affairs summit in Luxembourg has discussed the need to reform the bloc’s open borders approach to the Ukraine War, with crackdowns on both Ukrainians and Russians proposed. While preventing Russians from enjoying their summer holidays in Europe is already widespread, a further proposal came from the Swedish government, with their representative migration minister Johan Forssell calling on the bloc to stop being a hideout for young Ukrainian men who don’t want to fight.
Reuters reports Forssell’s strident comments on fighting age men, quoting him as having said: “It is essential for us to provide Ukrainians with protection, but at the same time the war needs to be fought and won. For that to happen, it is essential that more men stay in Ukraine and fight”. The proposed change would apply to new arrivals from Ukraine in the future, not those already in the bloc, it was stated.
As things stand, Ukrainians benefit from a generous “temporary protection directive” which grants them residency, work, and welfare rights in the European Union, well ahead of most refugees on the continent. This was enacted in part as an act of solidarity with the European Union’s eastern neighbour after it was invaded in 2022, but also on the understanding that most Ukrainians could be productive temporary members of society and would then want to go home and rebuild after the war ended.
This may have been optimistic. The war has dragged on longer than many suspected at its outset, and research clearly shows many Ukrainians like their new homes and feel no great desire to move back to a war-torn country.
While Ukraine always prevented fighting-age men from leaving the country, until now the European Union took the tacit position that those who could get out of Ukraine could stay. The Ukrainian government reported earlier this year that two million Ukrainians are thought to have dodged the draft and 200,000 have gone absent without leave from the armed forces, with many going abroad.
Remarkably, while Sweden proposes refugee restrictions for fighting age Ukrainian men to bolster the war effort, it makes no mention of making it more difficult to prevent young woman from avoiding the front line. Sweden practices military conscription domestically and was one of the first Western countries to make the draft gender neutral. Others have done the same including Denmark and Norway.
Beyond discouraging young Ukrainian men, the European Union home affairs meeting also discussed plans to make it more difficult for Russians to visit the bloc. Despite wide-ranging sanctions it is still perfectly possible for wealthy Russians to holiday in Europe and nearly half a million visas were issued last year, reports Sverigesradio.
Sweden’s minister Forssell was again cited on this topic, with the Aftonbladet newspaper noting there is already an alliance of European nations including Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, and Czechia who say the European Union should grant itself the power to be able to reject Russian visa applications altogether, on the simple ground that the applicant is a Russian. Forssell added that issuing tourist visas also made it too easy for Russian spies to travel to Europe, and said:
We must put an end to Russian weekend trips around the Mediterranean with luxury shopping while Ukrainian women and men are simultaneously dying on the battlefield and taking shelter under the rubble. It is completely unreasonable that this is happening.
… Russia uses every loophole there is. So that’s why I say it’s both about stopping luxury tourism from Russian citizens, but it’s also about security threats and people who have connections to the regime.