Poland calls for a review of EU protection for Ukrainian men of draft age
Poland is calling for the exclusion of Ukrainian men of conscription age from the EU’s extended temporary protection scheme, which is currently being discussed by member states.
Poland supports a proposal to potentially restrict the right to temporary protection in the EU for Ukrainian men of draft age, which ministers will discuss on Thursday, June 4.
“In our view, there is no controversy over the fact that individuals who cannot legally leave Ukraine anyway should not be able to receive temporary protection in the EU,” explained a Polish diplomat.
He added that such a decision would be beneficial in light of relations with the Ukrainian government, which supports these restrictions as it faces a severe shortage of personnel on the front lines.
According to the diplomat, denying this specific group access to temporary protection does not violate ethical or humanitarian principles, as it systematically equates their rights with those of other foreigners.
In addition, Warsaw also supports the abolition of special privileges for Ukrainian refugees in favor of standard immigration rules.
However, Poland finds the option of imposing restrictions on Ukrainians based on geographical factors unacceptable. This refers to restrictions on granting protection to individuals from “relatively safe” regions of Ukraine. Such a system was implemented, for example, by Norway, which excluded refugees from several Ukrainian regions—such as Lviv, Volyn, and Zakarpattia—from automatic protection.
Warsaw rejects this approach as unfair, arguing that all of Ukraine is under missile attack from Russia.
This was reported by RMF24.
As a reminder, the U.S. will provide Poland with a $2 billion loan to purchase weapons: F-35 fighter jets, Patriot air defense missile systems, and Abrams tanks.
Earlier, Poland signed an agreement with the U.S. for the supply of 96 AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopters, along with a logistics and training package, for a total of $10 billion.
