 It's almost Christmas, well one of the Christmases, the Catholic one. So let's set a festive tone because in the everyday rush we may well need just that little bit of help to get in the mood for celebrating the birthday of some guy who famously told his followers to love one another and insisted that, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Because by the look of it, we Europeans seem to have a mixed record in loving our neighbors, especially when they are fleeing war and disaster. So today, we talk about refugees. The reception of Ukrainian refugees was very political and actually when it comes to the reception this was a blessing. But my fear and the fear of many migration scholars is that it can turn into a curse. We pretend that we can respond with migration management, how it is often called, that we manage migration, but this is already far too late. When people need to leave their countries, then it's already too late. The EU didn't just run out of the gates and say, welcome all Ukrainian refugees, there was immense pressure, international pressure and internal pressure to declare these rights. The bar was so low compared to other asylum seekers. We always have this like a mantra, we distinguish between flight and legal migration as if these are two completely different things, but who wants just to flee? Everybody wants to also have a sustainable life afterwards, so you need to also sync it together. Our labour markets scream actually for people, so I think we have to be much more creative. Hello and welcome to Standard Time. I'm Mirei Kokinga Pop, editor-in-chief of Eurazine and your host on Standard Time. Eurazine is an online publication that combines articles from more than 100 culture journals, reaching people all around the world. We are also proud to be a founding partner of Display Europe, a new platform presenting European content in 15 different languages. From the streets of Istanbul to the waves of the English Channel, refugees play a definitive role in European life and politics, as they have been for thousands of years. The surface of today's political discourse is divided between extremes. On the one hand, we have the Europeans who love to brag about their heroism in receiving refugees and our devotion to human rights, and on the other hand, we see the steady rise of xenophobia in mainstream politics. These tones play a dreadful duet, while a great number of people meet horrible deaths, trying to sail through the Mediterranean, walk their way north from sub-Saharan Africa, or struggle to find a path where you foot across the deep forests of the Belarusian borders. And for those who do make it to a more desirable destination, Europe does not offer a land flowing with milk and honey. Housing is a crucial challenge on a continent reluctant to address its deepening housing crisis. From the Lampedusa Camp in Italy to the jungle in Calais and the Grand Sins Camp in Dunkirk, many faced terrible conditions and dangerous environments. Many refugees, skilled or unskilled, find themselves either unemployed or underemployed. For instance, in Germany, one of the major host countries in Europe, only about 40% of adult refugees had found employment after five years of residence, compared to 70% of the rest of the population. And this figure only starts to describe the people who have been granted refugee status does not even grasp those who have been refused it. For some, this is a struggle across generations, living perpetually displaced, never safely settled or integrated. From the blatant xenophobia of Giorgia Malone's administration in Italy or the Tory party's vile dreams of deportation in Britain, a lot of political players have turned anti-immigration into their entire identity. Some others bravely display their human rights sentiment, all the while arranging for non-European countries to absorb immigration for them, outsourcing their own violent refusal to practice the values they preach. Of course, not all refugees in Europe have crossed continental boundaries. As of September 2023, around 6 million Ukrainian refugees have been registered across Europe. This is the most significant displacement of people in Europe since the Second World War. The role of the diaspora, particularly in Poland, has been crucial in managing the crisis and supporting new refugees. But we may well admit that it is a marathon and not a sprint, and research reveals growing resentment as the war drags on. Our guests today are here to help us grasp the breadth and depth of this issue. Martin Wagner is a senior policy adviser for asylum at the International Centre for Migration Policy Development. He specializes in European and international refugee law and authored several studies on European asylum seekers. Olena Jermakova is an interdisciplinary researcher with a focus on central and eastern European migration. Currently, she continues her research into Ukrainian labor migrants in Poland at the Research Centre for the History of Transformations at the University of Vienna. Welcome and thank you for taking the time and coming on the show. Today we're going to talk about refugees because, of course, this is a perfect Christmas topic when we celebrate the birthday of a refugee child, anyway, and supposedly also mercy and understanding towards each other, which I don't think we have a spotless track record in in Europe. Let's talk about your research first, Olena. You have recently published an article in Eurazine. You studied the relationship of Ukrainian, whom you term labor migrants, and their integration in Poland and their role in receiving the bigger waves of refugees in 2022 and 23. The role of kind of old Ukrainian diaspora is largely underestimated in this kind of, you know, warm welcome of Ukrainian refugees in 2022. Many researchers point out that we can see if we kind of look at the maps of where labor migrants settled before and where the refugee settles, they kind of mirror the refugees being hosted by their families, extended families, and by their friends took like an enormous burden in housing and helping out the newly arrived refugees. However, as time passes and as the war lasts and people get more and more exhausted, Ukrainian population abroad, it also becomes less unified in many ways. We can see many more new frictions arising in the society. So, because of course, before 2022, the migration regime applied to Ukrainians was very different. It was a kind of strict labor migration regime, whereas afterwards it was this humanitarian migration regime, so to say. So the treatment was very different and in my research, for instance, I see that there's a lot of resentment from the old migrants towards the new ones. Also kind of, they see this as preferential treatment, which they did not get. So even within Ukrainians themselves, we see resentment, unfortunately. Martin, you work on migration policy, but you have worked for the longest time in supporting and representing asylum seekers. Do you see this kind of tendency playing out with other refugee and asylum seeker groups? Is this also the case that many of them go where they already have contacts? It's a marvelous question, I must say, because this is the big difference that we have with Ukraine. Basically, in order to come to a safe country, people need to leave the country, go into another country irregularly. There are no these regulated pathways that people can go from one country to the other. There was a recent article, I brought it very much to the point, I said that the temporary protection that is applying for Ukrainians is the biggest task force against smuggling. And in fact, it is like this. People can go where they have language skills, where they have relatives, friends, or where they think they fit best because of their job skills and what they have. And this is a huge difference. Regular asylum seekers, so non-Ukrainians, are stuck mostly in the first country. They are. But I must also say, it is not really foreseen like this in new regulations. There's this Dublin regulation that many people know. If somebody comes to a country, asks for asylum, there would be a hierarchy of reasons where they could go, meaning probably there's a minor somewhere, and a relative somewhere, or whether they were ready before they end one way or the other. This was maybe the most unique thing about Ukrainian migration, this unprecedented mobility opportunity that we enjoyed. And because I've done also some research on return refugees in late 2022, this was maybe counter-intuitively, but also a factor for people to return, allowing people to leave and then come back again, actually made them leave, because the stakes were lower for them. They thought that if something happens, if the situation gets worse, I can still get out. I don't have to kind of make this all or nothing choice right here, right now, which would of course make people stay, because you don't know what's coming. Yeah, you also point out in your article that the primary goal of a refugee is to get to a point where they can stop being a refugee. Can you explain what this means to those who have never experienced forced migration or having to leave somewhere that they called home? Being a refugee has been in a state of limbo. You put your life on hold and you wait either for it to return or you're seeking for new opportunities. So either to come back home and to return to your life as it was more or less as much as possible, or to fully integrate in a new country, get the passport, get the job, become like a proper resident with full rights and so on. Ukrainians are under temporary protection and the word temporary is very key here. The protection lasts only for three years and as of now no one still knows what's going to happen afterwards. It's a state of limbo and I think people want to exit it as soon as possible. And now a word from our partner. Today we come to you from the Alte Schmiede Kunstverein, a vibrant cultural hub located in the heart of Vienna, Austria. Thanks to them for hosting us. Their program ranges from literary talks and events to concerts and all of them are free to attend. For a complete list of events and further details, please visit Alte Schmiede's website at AlteSchmiede.at. Can we put it in a wider context like our current understanding on refugees and our moral understanding of obligations towards refugees are rooted, let's say most closely, in the aftermath of the Second World War, right? It's just the aftermath of this incredible massacre and genocide across the world and it often seems that whatever guarantees, protocols, progress was made during, let's say, like a 50-20 years following the Second World War. We keep dialing back from those. You are completely right. I mean, the foundation of what we have dates back to 1951 in the language from the Geneva Refugee Convention in the aftermath of the Second World War. You find many of the definitions of how a refugee is defined already. It has the wording race in their religion, all these kind of things that were of utmost importance in the Second World War or during the Nazi regime. And you're also right. It is actually quite long ago already. It's 1951 and this instrument is still the main reference point that what we do on European and EU policies. This is the reference document and you find it also in all other EU law, for example. And this is also why many want to question the Geneva Refugee Convention in one way or the other. They say, is it still timely or not? But just imagine, 74 years, how many refugee situations it already helped us to come through the Geneva Refugee Convention so further developed through case law, through a new law that was applied. I'm not really questioning the Geneva Convention only in part because I'm not competent to. What I'm saying is that in mainstream political discourse, xenophobia and anti-refugee and anti-migration tones get louder and louder. It feels like these parties and political players are trying to negotiate down from this anchor point, forced deportations, mass deportations, the idea to just withdraw already granted citizenships. These are things that would have seemed unthinkable only just a few years back. So it seems to me that on the level of political discourse, we're actually seeing a deep infringement on these conventions and sort of a gradual degradation of this baseline with some notable exceptions. The EU didn't just run out of the gates and say, welcome all Ukrainian refugees. There was immense pressure, international pressure and internal pressure for the EU to declare these rights, right? Yes, so the reception of Ukrainian refugees was very political. And actually, when it comes to the reception, this was a blessing. But my fear and the fear of many migration scholars is that it can turn into a curse because when you apply this moral notions of hospitality and solidarity and such, this means that you're not applying the law and you're not applying rights and obligations, which means that the decision to send people back can also follow political moods. So it's viewed like some kind of an individual grace and that's something you're entitled to. And grace, it's arbitrary, right? And it can be taken back. The reception of Ukrainian refugees followed legal documents which already existed, so the temporary protection directive. But it was enforced because of the political moods. Of course, this mobilization can not last forever. If you look at the reception, so the usual reception is housing that is provided by states. And in Ukraine context, we have an incredible huge amount of private housing that has been offered. There was over ambition by people without knowing what it means. Because you say, okay, of course, everybody wanted to open their houses, their hearts and everything. But it means also, you don't know when it stops. And can you tell then somebody, please leave the house? I cannot anymore. I need my space again. Yes, it was very bottom up. But because it was very bottom up, there was not enough kind of state support, institutional support. So, like, sustainable structures were not created. It was all individuals or NGOs, some researchers call it NGOization, different social tensions that arise. They are such a breeding ground for populist politics. Like we've seen after 2015, you know, the rise of far right-wing populist parties across Europe, which can largely be traced back to the mass migration back then. This now can also reinforce the already existent far right populist forces in Europe. It is impossible to avoid talking about what we have already mentioned briefly, this incredible difference between Ukrainian refugees and asylum seekers, because not everybody gets the refugee status, of course. You will never have so easily an unanimous vote anymore. It doesn't matter in what context we could think of that something like this could happen again. I work already quite long on this field. And I sometimes have a bit the impression, isn't migration a bit too precious for political small gains for elections in order to have your electorate and you have your easy gains? Whenever do we hear that our migration policies work, something is working good? If you remember the biggest difference between 2015 and the Ukrainian situation was for me, there was a patchwork. Each country did it somehow in the Ukrainian one. This was an unanimous approach. I think also the population understood this is exceptional. There will come many people, but we know and we work together on that. And I think this was important. And I think this is how communication about migration has to be. It is a challenge. It is nothing easy. We don't paint things pink in a way, but we face them. And we are in control and we know what we do. I think what's important speaking about the preferential treatment or so-called preferential treatment that Ukrainians received is that the bar was so low compared to other asylum seekers. And I think what we kind of collectively should aim for is sort of like raising everyone up to kind of the level of humane and decent support that Ukrainian refugees received rather than dragging Ukrainians down so that they're equal with everyone else. We like to say this about human rights, that equality is not something that somebody usurps from you. The more there is, the more you get out of that. But of course, for that you do have to have a mindset. And in European politics, xenophobia is a very hot commodity. And as Martin said, it's cheap. But Martin, you also mentioned that the fact that Ukrainians fleeing the war was legal basically did away with human trafficking, right? Because there was no reason to traffic these people. Do you see a potential for this experience to also be kind of a push towards something better? Because we now experience that all of these Ukrainian refugees somehow didn't swallow the rest of Europe, or at least not so far. Not that I've seen. And then maybe use this as a point of persuasion to push things for the better, or I'm being too optimistic. I'm afraid so. I would love to say this is the future that comes to us. No, I'm afraid it's too optimistic. If we, even if this is a Christmas version here, I think it's a Christmas miracle. I really must say that the options are very limited. But it's not only that we are very solidarity or whatever, but we also need labor power. We need people here. We are a demographically aging society. So why not bringing things together? This is something completely unthinkable, because we always have this like a mantra. We distinguish between flight and legal migration, as if these are two completely different things. But who wants just to flee? Everybody wants to also have a sustainable life afterwards. So you need to also think it together. And why not also looking at the needs of our societies and what kind of labor opportunities are there? And our labor markets scream actually for people. I really feel a bit like we try to respond to contemporary migration phenomena with concepts from at least 20 years ago, 30 years ago. And this was what I mentioned, this divide between flight on the one side and legal migration on the other. Because everybody needs both to think about climate change and all these kind of things. This is not anymore either or it's nearly open. And now some words from our sponsors or shall I say, funders and founders, the European Commission and the European Cultural Foundation. The European Cultural Foundation is based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands and they have long been keen on connecting Europeans across borders, languages and cultural backgrounds. They've been supporting arts, research and much more since 1954. They also created the Erasmus Student Exchange Programme which has allowed over 10 million Europeans to travel and study abroad. Now they're bringing together partners from across Europe to build a content sharing platform that syndicates articles, audio and video programs in 15 languages and somehow miraculously also doesn't abuse your user data. This pay Europe offers content on politics, culture, community and so much more. It also brings you this very talk show, Standard Time, produced by one of the co-founders, Eurazine. This all wouldn't be possible without the support of the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. Thanks folks, now let's get back to where we were before. So we tend to kind of draw this line, you know, before February 2022, it was all labor migration and after February 2022 it was all, you know, refugees forced displacement. Now the reality of course is very complex and things are a bit more interconnected in practice. I can share a personal anecdote. So me and my younger sister, we were, you know, one of these people at the line to the Polish border on 28th, I think of February that was, which was before the temporary protection was invoked. And back then, like, Ukrainians on social media were sharing, you know, stories and like kind of circulating advice. Whatever you do, do not apply for refugee status, like unless, you know, you lost your passport and you have absolutely no other choice because being a refugee is absolutely the worst kind of legal status that you can have. So even though we were, you know, literally fleeing missiles, like there cannot be like more obvious and direct, I guess, you know, reason to be a refugee, we were there and been like, okay, so what are we gonna say at the border? We're gonna say that we're just going to Krakow for tourism, you know, like to see the castle or something. So like in that moment, I kind of realized that, you know, all this discourse about, you know, refugees choose to come to Europe to milk the cow of social benefits and have this privileged life is just completely untrue. Yeah. Just to clarify, I think what you meant is not the refugee status that this is a worst status, but asylum seekers, just to have this because refugee status is a strong status. It's a stronger status than temporary protection. Yes, thank you for clarifying. But this is also one of the things that, you know, where preferential treatment of Ukrainians is not completely preferential because indeed, we're not given this like long-term pass towards citizenship and usually the social benefits that come with the full refugee status are much stronger than Ukrainians receive under temporary protection. Yeah, but let's be clear. Like this is not a disadvantage, Olympics, so you're not saying that you are worse off than the people camping out in the border forests of Belarus. What you were saying is that what many people frame as like heaven on earth has very severe limitations. We also see EU policy, foreign policy, basically securing that certain asylum-seeker populations don't even reach the continent, that certain, for instance, Northern African or Middle Eastern countries absorb the incoming asylum seekers from Sub-Saharan Africa, from Syria and Afghanistan, and sort of keep them there. You advise migration policy. How do you feel about the EU's policy right now? I think it's very difficult to explain to a population why somebody from Syria goes through Turkey, through Greece, through Western Balkans and so on and then to Austria. But the thing is, the Geneva Refugee Convention doesn't give us this. It doesn't tell us how people can access. There is no really clear and good policy option that you could put on the table because there is none. But what I see very often is, we pretend that we do, that we can respond with migration management, how it is often called, that we manage migration. But this is already far too late. When people need to leave their countries, then it's already too late. We have to do something that comes before. We have to be much more smarter with our foreign policies that we not only think about irregular migration, but we think much more about development, much more about how you can create opportunities for people. And we still have to acknowledge that climate change will be a huge topic in the future. But my point is here really that we try to, I don't know how it is called in English, but we try to put the horse from the wrong side. We need to break the silos of thinking in boxes. We think about migration. We think about the economy. We think about foreign aid or something, but we need to bridge these things and bring them together. We come back to the fact that we already mentioned that there is no long-term sustainable strategy for migration. Everything is just reactive. Many politicians think about electorate, and electorate is for years or five years at maximum. But migration is not something that you can think about in four or five-year terms. You need to go, we spoke about demography. We spoke about climate change. It is not something that will be in the next five years coming to us, but it will be the next 10, 20, 30 years. But in order to be prepared, then we need to start right now. The expression you mentioned that we approached the horse from the wrong side in Hungary, and I would use the expression that says that we have to tailor the trousers to the backside and then the other way around. When political forces are trying to appeal to an electorate, first of all, they behave like the opinions of that electorate were immobile. Like they had to serve a certain interest, but we see, especially with populists, that popular opinion moves all the time. So you can't persuade people, even if they are not initially very happy to have a lot of refugees or labor migrants, whoever to come around to be more hospitable. But another example that comes to my mind is the recent Polish elections, where the Conservative Party started to turn away from their support of Ukraine, and it didn't pay out for them. Does this leave a mark on the Ukrainian diaspora there? So with the recent elections, I guess it's too early to say what's the effect of that will be, but a lot of the migrants, mostly kind of low-skilled labor migrants, they are quite apolitical in that sense. They don't speak the language, so they don't follow the news. So this populist discourse does not affect them so much. But then the ones who do follow Polish politics who are in the country for a long time speak the language, are kind of involved, and of course, this is a very big concern for them. Many people I talked to, they felt very uncertain about their future because of the politics, because of this populist anti-migrant discourse. So we are towards the end of the discussion, so I'd like to close with this round a completely imaginary sort of megalomaniacal rant. If we have like one wish, one immediate wish, to come true as of tomorrow in this field, what would that be? Depoliticized migration. Yeah, I mean, no wars would help quite a lot. And you know, we have other than wars that are forced people to leave their countries. I think we don't need additional ones, yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming along. And Mary, whatever each of us will celebrate. This show is presented by Eurazine, a platform offering insightful articles from over a hundred partner journals in multiple languages. You can be a part of this intellectual journey by visiting patreon.com slash Eurazine to become a patron, starting at just three euros per month. For this, you'll get access to bonus materials, early releases and further perks. Our show is a production of Display Europe, an innovative platform dedicated to presenting content with a strong focus on data privacy. We're also grateful to the Altishmide for hosting us. Funding for this program comes from both the Creative Europe Program of the EU and the European Cultural Foundation. The opinions and views expressed here are those of the authors and the speakers, and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU or their European Education and Culture Executive Agency.