At a meeting on June 13 in Brussels, the interior ministers of the EU countries are expected to approve the European Commission's proposal to extend the mechanism for "temporary protection" for Ukrainian refugees until March 2027. European Commissioner for Home Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner stated this to journalists before the meeting. His words were quoted by the BBC.
"Today we are extending temporary protection for Ukrainian citizens, but we will also discuss the way forward, the roadmap, because Ukrainians, of course, desperately need the return of people to rebuild the country, and we will do that," Interfax-Ukraine quoted Brunner.
Ukraine's Minister of National Unity Oleksiy Chernyshov, invited to the meeting of the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Luxembourg, thanked the European Union for this decision and recalled that, according to Ukrainian data, currently about five million Ukrainian refugees are under the "temporary protection" of the EU in various European countries. 60% of them have been accepted by Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.
"And it is important that we are ready to voluntarily return some Ukrainians or most Ukrainians after the end of the war and the establishment of a stable peace. "We are preparing special centers in the capitals of the European Union countries, which are called "unity centers" and will provide professional services both to those Ukrainians who are considering the possibility of voluntarily returning home after peace is achieved, and to those who decide to integrate into the European Union countries," Chernyshov was quoted as saying by Interfax-Ukraine.
The meeting of the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is planned to approve the candidacy of an EU special representative for Ukrainians. According to the press, this will be Ylva Johansson, a former European Commissioner from Sweden.
Johansson was European Commissioner for Home Affairs from 2019 to 2024. She has visited Ukraine several times, visited a Ukrainian refugee camp in Romania, and was awarded the Ukrainian Order of Merit.