Temporary Protection: a matter of political will. A comparative perspective on the implementation of the Temporary Protection Directive applied to the case of the Ukrainian emergency

This dissertation was born from the question of whether Temporary Protection can be an appropriate and efficient tool to protect persons fleeing armed conflict in situations of mass influx, focusing on the adoption and implementation of the Temporary Protection Directive as a viable response to the Ukrainian emergency. Through the analysis of three different countries – Italy, Hungary, and Poland – the project underlines the common features in approaching the reception of massive inflows of people fleeing Ukraine and the States’ level of willingness to open their borders to asylum seekers to protect and integrate them. These States’ usual pattern consists of a consistent refrain from welcoming refugees and asylum seekers and of restrictive interpretation of international commitments. However, Italy, Poland, and Hungary accepted the TPD to welcome fleeing Ukraine into their territories. The flexibility of the tool, its capacity to respond to various kinds of mass influx, and the fast administrative process that avoids an overload of resources would represent the strengths of the TPD. However, despite this appearance of solidarity, the restrictive interpretation of the Directive has been leading to some standards in the reception and protection of people fleeing the Ukrainian conflict, by privileging Ukrainian citizens over third-country nationals and stateless persons. This stratification produces high levels of discrimination in terms of human treatment and access to human rights and it leads to severe episodes of racism in several cases. The analysis concludes that the Temporary Protection Directive can effectively serve as a viable solution to deal with situations of mass influx and emergencies, but alone it is not enough. The three case studies are representative of the European countries’ general attitude to closing their borders in the name of security reasons. The Ukrainian emergency – through the adoption of the TPD- shows that a collective and immediate response from the European Union to help people fleeing an armed conflict situation is possible. However, it also demonstrates that the political will of States plays a key role in welcoming asylum seekers and refugees and providing them protection.