Ukrainians will be able to receive temporary protection in the European Union countries only if they have a special document stating that they are not subject to mobilization in Ukraine. These changes will be presented in the directive on temporary protection for refugees, which the European Commission plans to approve in July.
This is reported by the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita.
Polandʼs Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Duszczyk said the changes would apply to both men and women, but would not apply to those who have already received temporary protection in the EU.
The directive is due to be adopted in July, but will come into force in March 2027. The media also writes that in the first five months of 2026, Ukrainians filed 992 applications for temporary protection in Poland, 550 of which were from men of military age. Warsaw granted protection to 78 Ukrainians, including eight men.
Currently, about 4.3 million Ukrainian citizens have temporary protection status in EU countries. The largest number is in Germany — over 1.2 million, and in Poland — almost 960 thousand.
According to the PESEL register, as of June 15, more than 218 thousand men from Ukraine aged 18 to 65 live in Poland. In total, about 1.15 million Ukrainian men have temporary protection status in EU countries.
- In early June, it became known that EU countries are discussing the possibility of not extending the future extension of temporary protection to Ukrainian men of military age. However, such restrictions are proposed to be applied only to new applicants who will apply for temporary protection status.
- In late June, the Danish government introduced a bill proposing to stop granting refugee status to Ukrainian men aged 23 to 60. Hungary said it did not support the EU proposal. Prime Minister Péter Magyar said that even if the EU adopted such a decision, it would not prevent Hungary from granting refugee status to ethnic Hungarians arriving from Ukraine.
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