Number of refugees from Ukraine having temporary protection status in EU up nearly 52,000 in Oct - Eurostat

MOSCOW. Dec 11 (Interfax) - As many as 4,238,010 citizens of countries other than European Union member states who have left Ukraine after February 24, 2022 were granted temporary protection status in the EU as of the end of October 2023, Ukrainian media reported citing the EU statistical office Eurostat.

"Compared with the end of September 2023, the number of beneficiaries of temporary protection from Ukraine in the EU increased in all EU countries, except for Denmark, where it decreased by 4.5% (-1,700 people). The largest absolute increases were observed in Germany (+20,465; +1.7%), Czechia (+6,490; +1.8%), and the Netherlands (+4,005; +3.0%)," Eurostat said in its regular update.

The general increase in October was 1.2%, or around 51,800 people, compared to 0.8% in September, 1% in August, 1.1% in July and June each, 1.4% in May, and 1.3% in April. Germany has seen the largest increase over the past seven months (over 150,000 in total), followed by the Czech Republic (53,800).

The main EU countries hosting beneficiaries of temporary protection from Ukraine as of the end of October were Germany (1,215,365 people; 28.7% of the total), Poland (960,620; 22.7%) and the Czech Republic (364,450; 8.6%). The three countries accounted for 60.0% of all beneficiaries of temporary protection from Ukraine.

Compared with the population of each EU country, the highest numbers of total temporary protection beneficiaries per 1,000 people at the end of October 2023 were observed in the Czech Republic (33.7), Estonia (26.3), Poland and Bulgaria (both 26.1), and Lithuania (25.8), with the corresponding figure at the EU level standing at 9.5 per 1,000 people.

As of October 31, 2023, Ukrainian citizens accounted for over 98% of all temporary protection beneficiaries in the EU. Adult women made up almost half of these (46.4%), children for about one-third (33.4%), and adult men slightly more than one-fifth (20.2%) of the total. Three months before, men accounted for 19.2% of the total number of temporary protection beneficiaries.

Spain was the country with the fourth largest number of temporary protection beneficiaries from Ukraine (189,945) and Bulgaria the fifth (168,300).

The countries where over 100,000 such persons stayed as of the end of October included also Italy (161,600), Romania (142,340), the Netherlands (139,630), and Slovakia (111,615).

The countries where from 50,000 to 100,000 such persons stayed at this time included Ireland (97,315), Austria (81,295), Lithuania (73,715), Belgium (72,670), France (65,300, minors not included), Switzerland (66,125), Finland (62,515), Portugal (57,975), and Norway (60,980).

The countries with under 50,000 Ukrainians granted EU temporary protection status included Latvia (43,330), Sweden (42,530), Estonia (35,855), Denmark (35,740), Hungary (33,325), Greece (26,435), Croatia (22,700), Cyprus (18,635), Luxembourg (4,190), Iceland (3,615), Malta (1,935), and Liechtenstein (540).

Eurostat pointed out that all the above-mentioned data refer to the attribution of temporary protection status based on the Council Implementing Decision 2022/382 of March 4, 2022 establishing the existence of a mass influx of displaced persons from Ukraine due to the crisis and having the effect of introducing temporary protection.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency's data as of December 5, the number of Ukrainian refugees across the world was estimated at 6.309 million, including 5.905 million in European countries outside of Ukraine, going up by 67,000 and 55,000 respectively over the previous month.

Inside Ukraine, according to the UN data as of November 27, there were 3.674 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), compared to a previous estimate of 5.088 million IDPs. "It is important to note that this [reduction] is not due to a significant return of IDPs, but rather primarily to a change in the methodology used in calculating the number of IDPs. The new baseline population figure used to extrapolate IDP estimates now takes into account the absence of some 6.2 million refugees from Ukraine who are no longer in the country," the agency said.

The Ukrainian government expects 1.5 million Ukrainians to return to the country in 2024, according to the government's macro-economic forecast envisioning GDP growth by 4.6% next year.