Eastern Europe prepares to face a wave of refugees from Ukraine

The possible invasion of Ukraine by Russia could lead to the flight of up to a million people to countries in the Eastern European Union (EU), a scenario for which these nations have already begun to prepare.

The Vice President of the European Commission (EC), Schina’s Margaritishas estimated at between 20,000 and more than a million the number of Ukrainians who could flee to countries such as Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania in the event that Russia invades Ukraine, in whose eastern regions pro-Russian separatists have been fighting since 2014 against the Central government.

Up to a million refugees

The highest part of that range is also handled by the Governments of Hungary and Poland, a country where 250,000 Ukrainians currently live permanently, although the number of temporary residents can be up to one million.

The Polish Minister of Social Affairs, Marlena Malag, stated that “the Polish labor market could assimilate” up to a million Ukrainians displaced in case of war in that country.

Malag recalled that there are some 620,000 Ukrainian citizens residing in Poland and that this figure could be even higher, since not all immigrants have a work contract.

In fact, official data indicates that Poland already receives around a million workers on a “seasonal and cyclical”.

Poland is one of the countries that most strongly opposed the quota system to receive refugees approved by the EC in 2015 to face the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and misery in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

Worse than the Yugoslav wars

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the ultra-nationalist, has warned that if the conflict with Russia escalates, his country may face a larger wave of refugees than the one caused by the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, when Hungary welcomed tens of thousands of people.

A few days ago, Orbán stated that in case of war, “hundreds of thousands or even millions of refugees” would arrive from Ukraine.

According to Orbán, many of these refugees would cross the border with Hungary “without the hope of being able to return” and added that his government has already begun to prepare, although without specifying measures.

The Hungarian Minister of the Interior, Gergely Gulyás, has stated that Hungary can accommodate “tens of thousands of people” and that the Interior and Defense ministries are preparing a plan.

Hungarybeside Polandwas the country that most strongly opposed taking in refugees from the Middle East in 2015, and has since sealed its borders with fences and introduced harsh anti-immigration legislation.

Hungary It is one of the EU countries that maintains the best relations with Russia and has often criticized the sanctions that Brussels has imposed on Moscow for the illegal annexation in 2014 of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.

Relations between Hungary and Ukraine are traditionally tense, with Budapest accusing Kiev of violating the rights of the Magyar minority, while the Ukrainian government blames its neighbor for supporting Russia’s policies.

Romania: 600 kilometers of border

In Romania, which shares more than 600 kilometers of river, land and sea border with Ukraine, the Minister of the Interior, Lucian Bode, announced on the 14th that the authorities have prepared “an action plan to manage” a possible flood of refugees from Ukraine.

In an article published on the 18th by the newspaper Libertatea, the prefects of the Romanian provinces bordering Ukraine assured, however, that they had not yet received instructions on concrete measures to receive and house possible displaced persons.

According to official data, the authorities are in a position to permanently house some 1,500 refugees.

According to Defense Minister Vasile Dincu, Romania would set up additional infrastructures capable of housing “tens of thousands” of displaced more.

The most worrying war scenario for Romania is if Russia were to invade southwestern Ukraine from Crimea, to open a corridor between this peninsula occupied by the Russians in 2014 and Transnistria, an enclave controlled by pro-Russian forces in Moldova.

Refugees, not immigrants

Slovakia, which has a 100-kilometre border with Ukraine, has confirmed that it is willing to take in refugees if the conflict escalates.

“It is our obligation”, Slovak Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad confirmed during a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) last week.

“We prepare for the hypothetical situation that a large number of refugees arrive from Ukraine”, said Nad then, who stated that it would not be “economic refugees or emigrants but war refugees”.

Slovakia has also refused in the past to share quotas proposed by the EC to take in those fleeing the wars in Iraq and Syria.