Temporary protection: a directive used for the first time

The instrument existed. Written in 2001, after the Balkans, it had sat unused for two decades. On 4 March 2022 the European Union activated it, and the effect was immediate: people arriving from Ukraine received residence, the right to work, schooling for their children and access to healthcare, without waiting for an individual asylum decision.

I want to be precise about why that matters. An asylum procedure takes months and produces uncertainty. Temporary protection produced a legal status in days. A woman who arrived in Warsaw or Prague with two children could enrol them in school that week and look for work the next.

What else moved at the same time

The EU Civil Protection Mechanism was activated at a scale it had never operated at before, moving shelter materials, generators, medical supplies and food from member state stockpiles. United Nations agencies opened emergency appeals. Poland, Romania, Moldova, Slovakia and Hungary absorbed the first arrivals with a speed that no plan had prepared them for.

Moldova deserves particular mention. It is a small country and it took in more people per head of population than anywhere else.