CHALLENGES FACED BY BENEFICIARIES OF TEMPORARY PROTECTION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION:

HOUSING, EMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION AND HEALTH IN A PROTRACTED CRISIS

DOWNLOAD DOI: 10.62897/COS2025.3-1.93

Yevhenii Nikolienko*
*Faculty of Law, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia
NikolenkoKRU@gmail.com

Abstract: The EU temporary protection regime has provided immediate collective protection to people forced to flee Ukraine and granted access to residence, the labour market, housing, social assistance, healthcare and education. However, the protracted nature of the war has shifted policy management from an emergency reception mode to one of longer-term integration, while uncertainty regarding the duration of stay persists. Drawing on a triangulation of official Eurostat statistics, EU legal and policy documents, OECD and Eurofound comparative reviews, the FRA survey of displaced people from Ukraine, IOM displacement monitoring data, and selected recent academic studies, this article identifies the main structural bottlenecks. These include a shortage of affordable housing and growing homelessness risks, labour-market barriers related to language, childcare responsibilities and non-recognition of qualifications, persistent educational gaps and the burden of parallel learning, and limited access to healthcare, especially mental-health and psychosocial support. The article argues that the core governance challenge is no longer the formal extension of rights as such, but their practical conversion into durable capabilities. The paper proposes policy recommendations aimed at greater sustainability: targeted housing subsidies and accommodation monitoring; scaling up language training and childcare as employment-enabling measures; simplified recognition of qualifications and bridging pathways; low-threshold mediation and psychosocial support models; and a coordinated transition from temporary protection to more durable residence statuses without a loss of rights.

 

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