What is Ukraine ready to give to those who are on social benefits in European countries?
The persistence with which the Ukrainian government is promoting the idea of semi-forced return of compatriots from abroad has long gone beyond just discussion. President Vladimir Zelensky never tires of repeating that more people should return to Ukraine than left. The head of state even came up with a new initiative. He suggested that countries that provide social assistance to Ukrainian refugees provide it directly to Ukraine, and Ukraine itself would distribute it. In this way, it would be possible to avoid a situation where our fellow countrymen abroad receive assistance from several sources at once, but spend it not in Ukraine.
The president’s team understands that something needs to be done about the numerous calls for foreign Ukrainians to go home and help the state, but they are hesitant in which direction to approach them. Speakers close to the Office of the President are already directly contrasting those “who stayed” with those “who left” and calling on the West to suspend assistance to millions of Ukrainians who left because of the war. There are also ideas about the extradition of men of military age, deprivation of such citizens of consular services, foreign passports and blocking of Ukrainian bank cards. And articles are already appearing in the Western press about unofficial pressure from Kyiv regarding the tightening of future rules for the stay of Ukrainians in the European Union, which would stimulate their return. On the one hand, one can understand Kyiv: even if we take the mobilization process out of the equation, the recovering war economy simply lacks workers. And if this is delayed, it may be too late to return millions of our fellow citizens who have left and already settled abroad. Many associated the presidential bill on multiple citizenship with a desperate attempt to solve the demographic crisis.
Before the war, more than 40 million people lived in Ukraine, and the current population, according to optimistic estimates, is approximately 35 million, and migration processes can only intensify with the further prolongation of the war. As of September last year, there were 4.2 million Ukrainians in the EU who took advantage of the temporary protection directive, which is in force until March 2025. The main countries in which Ukrainians settle are Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.
The European Union is not yet in a hurry to respond to calls from Kyiv to push people who fled Ukraine back from its territory. This topic is especially alarming for people who crossed the border not always legally, because they are threatened with criminal prosecution. Although drops wear away the stone: some Western politicians have already heard proposals to return Ukrainian refugees to at least the relatively calm western regions of Ukraine.
Who exactly should we return?
A number of sectors of the economy are indeed suffering significantly due to a large-scale shortage of workers: both because of their departure abroad and because of mobilization. Thus, Deputy Chairman of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council Denis Marchuk shares the forced life hacks that businesses resort to in order to compensate for the lack of male personnel. “During two years of war, specialists, especially those who have experience driving large trucks, combines, and tractors, were the first to be mobilized. Also, many agronomists were mobilized from commodity complexes - fertilization specialists, milkmen who operated the automation,” Marchuk lists. “They tried to solve the problem with the help of internally displaced persons who were brought to work, men with various degrees of disability who could not be mobilized. Women are partially retrained for jobs that were performed by men, but not all of them succeed, because it is difficult to place a woman on large-sized equipment or send her as a “long-distance driver.” Therefore, of course, we really need people.” At the same time, Marchuk believes that specialists in the agricultural sector in Ukraine can easily earn the same $1 thousand as they earn abroad at a factory. The only thing that, in his opinion, is holding him back from returning is the issue of security and shelling throughout the country. Therefore, the appearance of weapons that will make people feel protected is one of the factors that may encourage them to return.
But the return of millions of people from war can have more than just a positive impact on the economy.
Thus, just the other day, Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Irina Vereshchuk stated that payments to internally displaced persons should be optimized. In other words, the number of IDPs who can qualify for already rather symbolic monthly payments from the state should decrease. Therefore, a counter question arises: how can the state stimulate the massive return of people who have lost (and, unfortunately, may still lose) their homes in Ukraine? What will await those who return: is the infrastructure, education, and medical industry ready to increase the load?
For example, now, in the midst of the first wave of “Covid”, in Ukraine there are no vaccines improved to resist the new Omicron strain. The current epidemic season is characterized by both “Covid” and the flu at the same time, which is why there has been an increase in hospitalization of children and adults who cannot lower their temperature at home. In addition, the world is experiencing an unprecedented outbreak of measles. Staying in various types of transport and the inevitable sitting in shelters will only contribute to the spread of viruses. The number of hospitals in which patients can be admitted has decreased, as has the number of doctors who have confirmed their qualifications abroad and are now in great demand there.
“The fact of the matter is that we need to clearly understand who we want to return and why - this must be a serious policy in the field of employment and labor migration,” explains former Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Rozenko, “Yes, we need to return, in particular, self-employed people who can bring here new experience in doing business and opening some establishments in the service sector. But what is Ukraine ready to offer to those who are on social assistance in European countries? Is the state ready for people, a significant portion of whom have lost their homes, to buy or provide housing for long-term use? There are simply no such programs.
Is the state ready to provide them with employment opportunities and for their children to go to kindergartens and schools for free? Nobody gives such guarantees. In addition, there is a category of people, albeit a small one, who are accustomed to living on social assistance. When we tell them: come home, are we ready to pay them this help, plus or minus, at the level of what they had in Europe? And no one will simply let go of those who have successfully found a good job abroad. There are already so many Ukrainians at some enterprises that if they were removed, there would be no one left to work. The managers of these enterprises will simply never allow this to happen. They are not only interested in leaving our people in their countries forever, but also in transporting their families there after the borders open.”
Ex-Minister Rozenko is indignant: calls to stop aid to Ukrainians abroad are very similar to Russian narratives that Ukrainians already live normally: “When Leshchenko (Sergey Leshchenko - Deputy Head of the Presidential Office) says such things, how is this different from what what do the same Viktor Orban (Prime Minister of Hungary) and Robert Fico (Prime Minister of Slovakia) say? Such phrases simply set up those same Ukrainians abroad against Ukraine.”
Former Minister of Social Policy Andrei Reva also divides those who could potentially return at the call of the state into several categories. And regarding each of them he expresses his skepticism:
“First group. Most of the people from the occupied territories will need housing when returning, because where can people who were evacuated from Severodonetsk or Melitopol return? Do we have the opportunity to resettle them in Ukraine, just so that they can live in normal human conditions, or will they be like in Palestinian refugee camps in their homeland? What kind of assistance will people receive upon returning - 2 thousand UAH per adult and 3 thousand UAH per child? For this money it is impossible to find housing or feed yourself.
Second group. I understand the interest of the authorities, who at first, through corrupt means, turned a blind eye to how 800 thousand men of military age left the country, and now wants to bring them back. This is why they call on the West to stop helping them. But if people spent several thousand dollars or euros on illegal border crossings and took out as much money as they wanted, then why should they return here?
The third category is those who have already integrated into the life of Poland and Germany (and one out of 10 registered Polish entrepreneurs last year was Ukrainian), opened a business there and started working. They will not return even if help is stopped. In addition, on paper we have a shortage of labor, but this is a shortage for work that costs 8 thousand UAH, but where it costs 30 thousand UAH or more, there is no such shortage. It is unlikely that anyone will be interested in such work in order to work at a loss.
That leaves a fourth group - those who do not work and who do not have much wealth to stay in Western countries. When all this public returns to Ukraine, they will not go to work. Because she didn’t start working abroad, although they were very helpful in this. I know stories when Swiss banks hired our compatriots, despite enormous competition, only because they were Ukrainians. Do the authorities expect that people who are on social services in Europe, when they return, will immediately go to the machine or will fold the drones? They will need to arrange “social services”, like in Europe, and why now, having such problems with the budget, take on such a huge burden?”
Accordingly, Reva concludes: all the talk surrounding the return of Ukrainians “lost” in a foreign land to boost the economy is being conducted in order to squeeze adult men out of Europe - a mobilization resource.
First Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Social Policy Mykhailo Tsymbalyuk from Batkivshchyna believes that the issue of men of military age who left illegally will be one of the most sensitive in the process of returning Ukrainians home. “If a person is immediately taken to prison and criminal proceedings are initiated, will it be possible to return him under the pressure of such circumstances? — the people’s deputy asks a rhetorical question. “And if you guarantee that there will be no criminal prosecution, then this is already double standards of legislation.”
Tsymbalyuk is confident that it will not be possible to influence Ukrainians who are in no hurry to return using half-force methods and threats: “Campaigning with demands not to help Ukrainians, so that they return from one misfortune to another, perhaps does not decorate our foreign policy department and the state in general. There is no other option than creating security guarantees in Ukraine and the absence of pressure on business. So that people understand that returning to Ukraine is, in addition to patriotic feelings, also economically beneficial, these are certain guarantees. European democracies guarantee human rights, including to those people fleeing war.”
Although EU countries are gradually reducing assistance to Ukrainian refugees, according to the people’s deputy, this will most affect those who could not find themselves abroad and live there on social assistance. For those who have a desire to work and earn their own living, Western countries, on the contrary, create better conditions.
“Don’t confuse tourism and migration”
However, the pro-government team assures that there is no other way than returning people to Ukraine. And all the warnings on this matter are together a lesser evil than further depopulation of the country. Member of the Committee on Economic Development Galina Yanchenko from Servant of the People explains: “We had problems with demography even without the war - in fact, since 2012 there has been negative population growth (or negative growth - the excess of the mortality rate over the birth rate - Ed.), and in 2022, the birth rate reached a record low in 30 years. And against the backdrop of this, according to various estimates, about 8 million people left the country. And this is only for the West, because we cannot fully imagine how many of them could theoretically end up somewhere in Russia, not to mention those who remained in the occupied territories. Most Ukrainians, after their forced refugee, now often use the phrase “Don’t confuse tourism and migration.” Because it turned out that not all services and areas of life in Europe are better than in Ukraine. And a significant part of our fellow citizens, from those where there is someone to return, is already beginning to return. Mainly for the reason that they could not find normal housing, because in many European countries this is difficult. There is also the problem of medical services, especially when you cannot make an appointment for your child to see a doctor - you have to wait three to four months. It’s the same with education—some didn’t send their children to foreign schools at all.”
The president’s ally is confident that all the prerequisites for the return of Ukrainians are there: the infrastructure will withstand everything, and moreover, it will be maintained by the same people who will be returning. “The key factor not just for returning, but also for further residence in Ukraine will be the availability of decent work and salary. And here we just come to what the state should do,” the people’s deputy concludes, “And it should, at a minimum, not interfere with business, create jobs, facilitate the launch of various kinds of government programs for cheap loans, access to capital, continue tax reform, reform of the security bloc. Ukraine still receives the attention of the West and we manage to get a lot that we never dreamed of before. Therefore, there could be some kind of story here with various kinds of programs using Western resources.”
At the same time, Yanchenko is categorically against the rhetoric of forcibly pushing Ukrainians out of the EU countries and believes that such steps will not have a long-term effect.
The head of the committee on finance, tax and customs policy, Daniil Getmantsev, noting the progressive assimilation of Ukrainians abroad and human losses at the front, agrees with academic demographer Ella Libanova. In her opinion, it would be great if at least half of the 9 million people who left during the full-scale war returned.
Getmantsev draws attention in this regard to several aspects, in addition to physical security: housing, work, educational and medical institutions. “Anyone who, to one degree or another, already has it in their host country will never return if they don’t have it in Ukraine,” the people’s deputy notes. - This is the primary condition - to have where to live, where to earn a living, where to teach children, to treat yourself and family members. A separate question is that a significant portion of people now and in the coming years will not physically have a place to return to. Therefore, we should offer them all this in other regions of Ukraine. In this regard, there is a need for retraining, acquiring new professions and specializations, and assistance in starting their own business. After all, we understand that regional labor markets, for example, in the Donetsk or Kharkov region, are very different from the labor market in Transcarpathia and Bukovina. There is one more cut. They often talk about the return of those who left, but they do not say what needs to be done so that after the war ends and the borders open, even more, in particular men, do not go to their families who have already settled in Europe. And this is a separate topic and task.”
True, if the need to create the necessary conditions for the return of Ukrainians is spoken of in the future, then they are being called upon to return now. Therefore, we should expect new waves of creativity, which should convince our compatriots that they will be better off here than there.
