2022 was another momentous year for both European migration and EPIM. Barely out of the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, the continent was engulfed by the refugee crisis precipitated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February. An estimated 8 million Ukrainians sought refuge in Europe in 2022, resulting in an unprecedented challenge for and response from the EU. The triggering of the Temporary Protection Directive (TPD), a hitherto unused aspect of the EU’s protection regime to provide a bloc-wide basis for refuge for Ukrainians was a welcome move, as was the heart-warming and inspiring display of solidarity by Ukraine’s neighbours in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Yet, it also underlined the blatant double-standard at play in European countries’ treatment of refugees, as they chose selectively to enforce the TPD, ignoring many asylum seekers, students and migrants from Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, forced out from Ukraine and also present at other EU borders.
Much of the displacement from Ukraine has focussed on Ukraine’s borders, with Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, and Moldova taking in the bulk of the refugees. This mass arrival has posed significant challenges for the education, healthcare, and social systems of these countries and in many cases has significantly exacerbated existing shortfalls in areas like access to childcare facilities, mental and psychosocial support, and services for the elderly. Yet, these countries have displayed significant adaptive capacity and resilience to ensure that most Ukrainians have been supported adequately, underlining the immense potential of Europe’s protection regime, should the appropriate political dispensation and framing be in place, and offering lessons that should be heeded and built-upon, in service of other displaced populations.
The situation in Southern Europe remains dismal as (often violent) pushbacks continued at Greek-Turkish border and the Evros River and in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. The reception crisis on Greece’s Aegean Islands and Cyprus continued unabated with facilities for new arrivals being sorely missed and a visible anti-migrant sentiment emerging. In the Southern Mediterranean, Italy’s stance against the docking of search and rescue ships and the flashpoints within Spain’s Moroccan enclaves remain issues of concern. And in the Western Balkans, the emergence of a new route of entry into the EU that involves visa-free travellers entering Serbia and then moving northwards, posed further challenges, as did the increasing number of boats cross the English Channel.
2022 also witnessed some promising developments on labour migration and market integration at the European level, with the launch of the EU Talent Pool and the EU Talent Partnerships schemes to attract foreign students, graduates and skilled migrants, and the renewal of the European Partnership for Integration between the Commission and European Social and five Economic Partners. The recognition of 2023 as the European Year of Skills and the rise of global schemes like Talent Beyond Boundaries only serve to highlight the importance of labour migration and refugee skills pathways to EPIM and its partners.
EPIM’s programming in 2022, thus reflected upon and responded to these challenges and opportunities and maintained its focus on the long-term strategic goals enounced in the EPIM Forward Strategy (2019-2023). It also witnessed the implementation of several activities across different thematic funds building on the approvals granted in 2021. Specifically, EPIM supported projects in spheres such as detention, decent work and housing, strategic communications, regularisation, and strategic litigation, across Europe. Complimenting this and in addition to its programming, the EPIM team also embarked on a Process of Change that seeks to build upon and strengthen EPIM as a collaborative fund and provide a new framework for functioning beyond the end of its current strategy.
