This interview with Martin Ruhs and Henriet Baas explores the Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) and how it was implemented across Europe, based on their study measuring the divergences in protection for displaced persons from Ukraine across 32 European countries during the first year of the TPD.
BY: Henriet Baas is a Researcher at the EUI Department of Law. and Martin Ruhs is Professor of Migration Studies and Deputy Director of the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) at the European University Institute.
When war broke out in Ukraine, the EU moved quickly, activating the Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) to offer people displaced from Ukraine immediate support and legal status, a rare display of European solidarity. Behind this rapid response, however, lies a complex reality. The way the Directive was put into practice varied across countries and, until now, we have known little about these differences.
In this interview, Henriet Baas (Law Researcher at the EUI) and Martin Ruhs (Deputy Director of Migration Policy Centre) take us through their research using the newly developed Ukraine Temporary Protection Indicators (UTPI). Their study tracks 32 European countries during the first year of the TPD, revealing how access to temporary protection, socio-economic rights, freedom of movement, and opportunities to transition to other residence statuses played out differently depending on where people arrived.
Temporary protection for Ukrainians was hailed as a rare moment of EU unity. Based on your findings, was it truly a success, or just the appearance of one?
Henriet Baas: EU cooperation on asylum and migration is highly sensitive marked by protracted policy-making. Against this background, the EU’s activation of the TPD only eight days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine was widely hailed as an exceptional moment of EU unity. Symbolically, it demonstrated solidarity with Ukraine, while practically it offered an alternative to asylum status that helped prevent the collapse of national asylum systems.
Yet activation was only the first step. What ultimately mattered for displaced persons from Ukraine was how Member States implemented the Directive in their national legislation. The TPD, like other EU asylum instruments, grants Member States considerable discretion, meaning that protection standards could differ significantly across the EU. Examining national-level implementation, which we did with our newly developed Ukraine Temporary Protection Indicators, is therefore key to understanding what rights displaced Ukrainians actually received.
At its core, the TPD grants important socio-economic rights such as access to the labour market, housing, health care and education. We found relative convergence across EU Member States regarding these rights in the first year of protection. This means that the EU managed to deliver a solid substantive core of protection to over 4 million of displaced persons. Without the TPD, these protection standards would almost certainly have been weaker and more fragmented.
However, calling the TPD a lasting success will ultimately depend on future developments. Although we did not observe an EU-wide rollback of protection standards between 2022 and 2023, more recently, it seems that more Member States have reduced certain standards. It further remains to be seen whether the EU comes up with a uniform transition for Temporary Protection holders into another residence status after the TPD expires in 2027.
What surprised you most when you compared national responses? Why did most of the divergence and implementation gaps occur in free movement rights?
Henriet Baas: We initially expected divergence in the area of substantive socio-economic rights, as this is common for the implementation of EU asylum legislation and also reflects the diversity of national welfare systems across Europe. Surprisingly, however, we found more divergence in other dimensions of protection.
To start with, Member States differed considerably in determining who was eligible for Temporary Protection status. Some countries limited it strictly to Ukrainians displaced after the Russian invasion. Others extended the status to non-Ukrainian residents of Ukraine as well as members of their pre-existing Ukrainian diaspora.
Secondly, as you mention, there was marked variation in Member States’ recognition of free movement rights. In principle, when activating the TPD, Member States agreed to introduce a “free choice of destination” model. This has meant that, unlike asylum seekers, Temporary Protection seekers do not have to remain in the first EU Member State they entered. This was supposed to avoid overburdening EU Member States at the border with Ukraine. Yet, in practice, we found that less than half of EU Member States explicitly endorsed or implemented this model. This could be because Member States tried to discourage movement or simply because they lacked experience with the free choice model in the first year of Temporary Protection.
Finally, we did not find that Member States neighbouring Ukraine granted higher protection standards than other countries. Similarly, countries that already hosted a high number of asylum seekers and refugees did not shirk off and provide less protection to displaced persons from Ukraine.
Can you give some examples of what Ukrainians lose or gain depending on where they land?
Henriet Baas: It is important to clarify that for many displaced persons from Ukraine, there was no genuine “free choice” of destination within Europe. Decisions about whether and where to flee were dependent on family circumstances, resources, and existing social networks in EU countries. Many have also continued to move between EU Member States after their initial arrival.
Some differences in protection standards between countries could have impacted these experiences. As explained earlier, not all EU Member States granted eligibility for Temporary Protection to the same groups. This unevenness may have forced some displaced persons to relocate to countries where they could actually obtain protection.
We also found that in the realm of socio-economic rights across Member States most divergence existed regarding social assistance, particularly child and housing benefits, as well as access to specialised medical care for survivors of psychological, physical or sexual violence. These rights are particulary important given that the large majority of displaced persons from Ukraine are women and children. Our research highlights that not all EU countries offered essential protections for these vulnerable groups.
Your study shows there wasn’t an EU-wide rollback of standards, despite fears. Why do you think governments held the line, and what can we expect in 2027 when the scheme ends?
Martin Ruhs: To EU Member States, the displacement of people from Ukraine was not only a protection issue that raised humanitarian concerns but also part of much larger developments that triggered a number of geopolitical and security concerns. Clearly, providing protections to displaced Ukrainians was one important way of showing solidarity with Ukraine in the war against Russia.
How long this ‘solidarity via protection’ of displaced Ukrainians will continue depends on a number of factors, including the evolving situation in Ukraine, when the EU’s TPD will formally end, and also on political developments across EU Member States. In terms of the continuation and potential fragmentation of protection standards across European countries, there are two alterrnative scenarios. On the one hand, the EU may decide to transition most or all temporary protection beneficiaries into a common EU status, such as long-term residence status. This is the option where we can expect the least future divergence in protection standards across EU Member States. On the other hand, there may be no common EU approach after the TDP ends, leaving it to each Member State to decide how to deal with the future protection of people displaced from Ukraine by transitioning them into national types of protection and residence statuses. In this case, we could expect much greater divergence in protection standards. We hope to collect more data in the future to track and analyse these future developments.
With the EU’s new migration pact entering into force in 2026, what lessons from the TPD are crucial to avoid fragmentation?
Martin Ruhs: The EU’s new pact on asylum and migration includes a range of restrictive and protective policies toward asylum seekers and refugees. One fundamental, and in many ways obvious, implication from the EU’s experience with the TPD for people displaced from Ukraine is that the degree of fragmentation in the implementation of the EU’s new migration policies at the national level will depend critically on the extent to which there really is a common understanding, value framework as well as perceived shared interest across EU Meber States in the agreed new policy approach.
At the same time, although the specific context of Ukraine makes it exceptional, the activation of the TPD does show that when EU Member States have a common understanding of when protection of displaced people and refugees is needed, it is not impossible they act upon it in a novel way that had, to many observers of European refugee policies and debates over the past few decades, previously seemed unlikey. Furthermore, EU Member States’ first-time experience with the implementation of the TPD in the case of Ukraine has created a precedent that might make its activation easier in cases of future mass displacement.