Switzerland Extends Temporary Protection for Ukrainian Refugees Until March 2024

According to the Swiss Federal Council, such a decision has been taken since the situation in Ukraine is not expected to improve anytime soon, AtoZSerwisPlus.com reports.

In addition, the Federal Council pointed out that temporary protection will be provided to those in need as long as they are exposed to serious danger.

“The situation in Ukraine is not expected to change in the foreseeable future. The Federal Council, therefore, decided at its meeting on November 9 not to lift the protection status S for Ukrainian refugees before March 4, 2024, unless the situation in Ukraine changes fundamentally before then,” the statement of the Federal Council reads.

The decision of Switzerland to extend the temporary protection directive for refugees from Ukraine comes not long after the Commission of the European Union decided to allow Ukrainians to stay in the EU under temporary protection until 2024.

Earlier in October, the EU Commissioner for Internal Affairs, Ylva Johansson, explained that Ukrainians who return to Ukraine could keep the temporary protection documents they received and use them when entering the EU as long as the directive remains effective.

Apart from extending the temporary protection directive until March 2024, the Swiss authorities have said that the support measures for people with protection status S will be extended for another year.

“Unlike the protection status, the residence permits of those with protection status S are limited to one year. The Federal Council has therefore instructed the cantons to extend the permits by one year on expiry,” the Council added.

Data provided by the Federal Council show that since March of this year, over 67,000 nationals of Ukraine have received temporary protection in Switzerland. The same noted that at the end of October, a total of 6,394 Ukrainians had permanently left Switzerland, 1,916 of them with return assistance.

As for the overall data, the UN Refugee Agency shows that until November 8, a total of 7,824,440 refugees from Ukraine have been recorded across Europe and another 4,699,333 of them have registered for temporary protection or similar protection scheme ins Europe.

Previously, AtoZSerwisPlus.com reported that Ukrainians filed fewer asylum applications in September. According to data provided by the EU statistics agency, Eurostat, Poland, Germany, as well as France registered the highest number of applications.

So far, Poland has granted temporary protection to 1.4 million Ukrainians and Germany has granted protection to 813,725 Ukrainians.