TEMPORARY PROTECTION DIRECTIVE

1. Context 

2. Key Points

• Responding to the Crisis, EU Member States on March 3 made the unprecedented decision to activate the European Union's Council Directive 2001/55/EC of 20 July 2001, known as the Temporary Protection Directive (TPD).
• At a meeting, European interior ministers unanimously agreed to establish a temporary protection mechanism for the waves of people displace from Ukraine because of the war.

3. About Temporary protection

• The European Commission describes "Temporary protection" under the TPD as an "exceptional measure to provide immediate and temporary protection to displaced persons from non-EU countries and those unable to return to their country of origin".
• The directive applies when "There is a risk that the standard asylum system is struggling to cope with demand stemming from a mass influx risking a negative impact on the processing of claims".

4. Reasons for establishing standards

1. It reduces disparities between the policies of EU states on the reception and treatment of displaced persons in a situation of mass influx.
2. It promotes solidarity and burden-sharing among EU States concerning receiving large numbers of potential refugees at one time.

5. Obligations do the TPD Place upon EU states

1. A residence permit for the duration of the protection (which can last from 1-3 years),
2. Appropriate information on temporary protection,
3. Access to employment,
4. Access to accommodation or housing,
5. Access to Social welfare or means of subsistence,
6. Access to medical treatment,
7. Access to education for minors,
8. Opportunities for families to reunite in certain circumstances and
9. Guarantees access to the normal asylum procedure.

6. How did the TPD come to be?

• As the USSR disintegrated, the 1990s saw multiple instances of armed conflict and ethnic strife in Europe.
• Yugoslavia disintegrated into its constituent republics amid fighting;
• Croats and Serbs fought bloody wars in Bosnia;
• Azerbaijan and Armenia fought over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh;
• The North Caucasus Russian republics of North Ossetia-Alania and Ingushetia clashed over the eastern part of the former territory's Prigorodny district and
• Transnistria, which made a bid for independence from Moldova as the Soviet Union collapsed, saw a short war.
• A large number of people were displaced by these conflicts and the EU felt the need to put in place special procedures to deal with mass influxes of displaced persons.
• The 2001 Temporary Protection Directive provided a tool for the EU to address such situations.
• The war in Ukraine is the first time that the EU has invoked the TPD. It is being seen as another sign of European unity against Russia.

For Prelims & Mains