The Diplomat
Spain has already exceeded 170,000 temporary protections to Ukrainian refugees one year after the activation of this extraordinary protection mechanism, as reported yesterday by the Ministry of Interior.
The European Commission communicated this past Thursday to the Council of Interior Ministers, which was held this week in Brussels, the extension of temporary protection until March 2024. The temporary protection mechanism grants, immediately, residence and work permits to citizens displaced by the Russian invasion.
The Temporary Protection Directive was activated by the Council of Interior Ministers on March 4, 2022, for the first time since its creation in 2001. Spain launched the urgent application and processing procedure only six days after its activation and, as of March 9, the Asylum and Refuge Office (OAR) of the Ministry of the Interior and the National Police have processed and granted a total of 170,193 protections.
Spain is the fifth country in the European Union that has granted the most temporary protection. Sixty-three percent of the people who have obtained this figure are women (105,998) and 37 percent are men (62,133). By age group, 33 percent are under 18 years old; 26 percent are between 19 and 35 years old; 34 percent are between 36 and 64 years old; and 7 percent are over 65 years old.
In addition, most of the people who have obtained temporary protection, 98.2 percent, are citizens of Ukrainian nationality, while the remaining 1.8 percent correspond to citizens of other nationalities who were legally residing in Ukrainian territory when the war broke out. The Valencian Community (46,154), Catalonia (39,132), Andalusia (24,275) and Madrid (23,840) are the autonomous communities in which the most temporary protections have been processed and granted.
