Overview
- The European Commission on June 26 proposed extending the Temporary Protection Directive to March 2028 while ruling that newly arriving Ukrainian men who are barred from leaving Ukraine because of military obligations should not receive automatic temporary protection.
- Denmark moved faster on June 25 by changing national law to deny residence permits to Ukrainian men aged 23 to 60 while allowing the roughly 47,600 Ukrainians already in Denmark and men with formal exemptions to stay.
- Under the commission plan those already granted protection in the EU would keep residency and work rights but new arrivals subject to Ukraine’s mobilization rules would be excluded and could still seek individual asylum claims.
- Human‑rights authorities, led by the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, warn that blanket exclusions risk violating obligations to carry out individualized protection and asylum assessments and to consider conscientious objection.
- The proposal must be adopted by member states in the coming weeks and faces parallel national bills in countries such as Germany, Poland and Czechia while Brussels plans a pilot return‑support programme offering jobs, housing and education for those who go home.