Musings From Abroad

EU fears the worst for Ukraine, agrees to host refugees for two years

Published

3 years ago

March 4, 2022

The European Union has agreed to adopt a novel directive to grant temporary protection for Ukrainians seeking asylum in neighbouring European countries after Russian military aggression.

The military offensive in Ukraine has caused destruction of civilian infrastructure and civilian casualties and has forced people to flee their homes seeking safety, protection and assistance. In the first week, more than a million refugees from Ukraine crossed borders into neighbouring countries, and many more are on the move both inside and outside the country.

Russia, on February 24, 2022 launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine by land, air and sea. The attack is the biggest by one state against another in Europe since World War II.

The vast majority of these exiled people have arrived in EU countries with Poland registering over half a million Ukrainian refugees and Hungary seeing more than 130,000 arrivals.

To cope with the large number of migrants which is the greatest human exodus in Europe since the end of World War II, the 27 member states have embraced a 2001 EU directive that had never been used before.

The European Union came about the Temporary Protection Directive in 2001 in the quest for solidarity between EU States after events in the 1990s, where conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, in Kosovo and elsewhere demonstrated the need for special procedures to deal with mass influxes of displaced persons.

The Temporary Protection Directive is an extraordinary scheme that grants immediate and temporary protection to displaced people coming from non-EU countries

The EU adoption of the Directive was reached in a meeting in Brussels on Thursday, where national ministers reached a unanimous agreement to move ahead and activate the Temporary Protection Directive. The law will enter into force once the proposal is formally adopted by the Council, a step expected to take place in the coming days.

Ylva Johansson, European Commissioner for home affairs, described the EU move as “historic” and a “great day”

“I’m proud of being European, I’m proud of the solidarity that individual citizens are showing” towards Ukraine, Johansson said at the end of the ministerial meeting.

Ukrainian refugees will be given residence permits to stay inside the bloc for at least one year, a period that will be automatically extended for a further year. Member states can then decide to prolong the exceptional measure by one more year if the war continues to ravage the country.

Musings From Abroad

UN Security Council deliberates stance on Sudan war

Published

2 days ago

November 13, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The UN Security Council is discussing a British-drafted resolution calling on Sudan’s warring parties to stop hostilities and permit safe, quick, and unimpeded assistance supplies across borders and front lines.

The world’s largest relocation crisis began in April 2023 when the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces engaged in a power battle ahead of a planned transfer to civilian administration.

Waves of ethnically motivated violence have resulted, with the RSF mostly to blame. The RSF has blamed the action on rogue actors and denies causing harm to civilians in Sudan. Two RSF generals were named last week by a Security Council committee in the first U.N. sanctions levied during the ongoing conflict.

“Nineteen months into the war, both sides are committing egregious human rights violations, including the widespread rape of women and girls,” Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Barbara Woodward, told reporters at the start of this month as Britain assumed the Security Council’s presidency for November.

“More than half the Sudanese population are experiencing severe food insecurity,” she said. “Despite this, the SAF and the RSF remain focussed on fighting each other and not the famine and suffering facing their country.”

According to diplomats, Britain wants to vote on the draft resolution as soon as possible. A resolution must receive nine votes or more to pass and not be vetoed by the United States, France, Britain, Russia, or China.

Nearly 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, require aid, according to the U.N., since 11 million people have abandoned their homes and famine has spread to displacement camps. Of those, around 3 million have departed for other nations.

In its draft language, Britain “demands that the warring parties immediately cease hostilities” and “demands that the Rapid Support Forces immediately halt its offensives” throughout Sudan.

It also “calls on the parties to the conflict to allow and facilitate the full, safe, rapid, and unhindered crossline and cross-border humanitarian access into and throughout Sudan.”

Additionally, the draft urges that assistance deliveries continue to be made through the Adre border crossing with Chad “and stresses the need to sustain humanitarian access through all border crossings, while humanitarian needs persist, and without impediments.”

Sudanese authorities have permitted the U.N. and relief organisations to enter Darfur through the Adre border crossing for three months, ending in mid-November.

Musings From Abroad

South Africa worry Trump’s victory might affect climate fight

Published

5 days ago

November 10, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

South Africa’s environment minister has expressed concern about the potential effects of Donald Trump’s victory on climate change negotiations.

The demise of Germany’s coalition government this week and Trump’s election coincide with COP29 negotiations to address global warming, which experts credit for this year’s devastating hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves.

“We are concerned about America because we don’t know what they’re going to do … how (it) is going to approach COP,” South African Environment Minister Dion George told Reuters.

“Mr. Trump said that he would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, but we don’t know what will happen,” George added in a telephone interview on Friday.

International partners are concerned that the prospect of an administration led by Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, will de-motivate poor and middle-income countries who want rich nations to shoulder more of its financial burden.

South Africa, which is one of the world’s top 15 greenhouse gas emitters and accounts for 30% of the continent’s emissions, has accepted $11.6 billion from rich nations, mainly in loans, for a switch from coal to renewable energy.

This is seen as a potential model for other ‘Global South’ countries who say financing pledges of $100 billion, which took years to come through, are insufficient.

“It’s certainly not enough. We need another target,” George said. “But then the question is: as the voter base is shifting in developed economies, are they actually going to pay it?”

The South African minister said he had been reassured by German officials that Europe’s stance at the COP29 climate talks will not be hurt by Berlin’s political crisis.

George said that Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s state secretary for international climate action, had contacted him to say it will be up to the European Union to maintain leadership.

“Their position is not changed and that is how they will approach COP,” George said, adding: “They’re on Team Europe. The European Union and German have clearly set out their objectives.”