The number of refugees in destination countries in the EU is further affected by the arrival of Ukrainian refugees who arrived in the first instance in countries bordering Ukraine and decide to migrate on to (other) EU-countries. Due to the unique situation of a war in a neighbouring country with which the EU has an association agreement, refugees with a biometric passport may travel without a visa for 90 days (plus a single extension of 90 days). After this, to remain legally, a registration must be made for temporary protection or an asylum application must be submitted. Due to this unusual situation, the Dublin regulation – that stipulates that the EU Member State in which an asylum seeker arrives is responsible for dealing with the asylum application – does not apply to Ukrainian refugees. Displaced Ukrainians can thus receive protection in the EU country they opt for.

There is no mechanism provided in the Temporary Protection Directive to distribute refugees among EU Member States, to prevent for example the countries bordering Ukraine or favourite destination countries having to accommodate a disproportionate number. A solidarity platform (as it is called) has however been set up, where countries can pledge to contribute to the protection of refugees. Until now, this has only happened to a limited extent, particularly to relieve Moldova (with promises for around 20,000 transfers). Besides this, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom are granting visas for refugees. Moreover, the European Commission has taken the initiative to display an index during the Justice and Home Affairs Council of 28 March, that calculates for each EU Member State the percentage of the State’s population with respect to the number of Ukrainian refugees plus other asylum applications forms. At the end of March, Poland, Austria and Cyprus led this list of the most burdened countries.[7] Very divergent scores on the index could indeed be a motivation for an appeal to those countries that are relatively less burdened, and therefore stimulate onward migration.

Since there is no legal ground for distribution of Ukrainian refugees among EU Member States, onward migration will mainly happen on the initiative of the refugees themselves. An initial proxy for future onward migration is the distribution of the Ukrainian diaspora in countries as it existed prior to the Russian invasion (see Figure 2).[8] Refugees will tend to travel on to join family and acquaintances, so diaspora attract onward migration. In the Ukrainian diaspora distribution before the 24th of February, to the Russian Federation (3.27 million), Poland (273,000) and Belarus (222,000), the geographical, cultural and linguistic vicinity played a role in settlement. Germany (290,000) and Italy (249,000) have been favourite destinations as large economies with much employment, while the German ethnic resettlement programmes played a role in this as well.[9]

Another proxy for onward migration flows is the migration intentions that Ukrainians had during the past 10 years. Researchers from the Swedish Delmi thinktank used Gallup World Poll data about migration intentions and the preferred destination to assess how Ukrainian refugees will finally be distributed among the European countries.[10] It emerges from this that Germany was the favourite country for more than one out of three Ukrainians. Based on this proxy, Germany could finally count on over 356,000 arrivals per million Ukrainian refugees. With the counter standing at more than four million refugees to European countries (not counting Russia and Belarus), Germany ought to prepare itself for around 1.5 million arrivals.[11] Indeed, Germany has already recorded almost 900,000 Ukrainian refugees for temporary protection.

We also see these migration intentions becoming reality in the onward migration patterns from for example Romania, which was the preferred country of destination for only 0.4% of the Ukrainians in the Gallup data. In Romania’s case, a great discrepancy exists between the number of people who originally crossed the Ukrainian-Romanian border, and the number of people who decided to register for temporary protection in Romania. Several other countries of first arrival, such as Slovakia and Hungary, also score low on the list of preferred destination countries. This means that significant onward migration may also be expected from these countries. A survey of 2369 arriving migrants from Ukraine, conducted since April by the EU Asylum Agency (EUAA) in cooperation with the OECD, found that 84% indicated they had reached their preferred final destination. Only 66% of the respondents indicated that they had registered for temporary protection in their preferred country. Significant onward migration is therefore still possible. In this poll, the UK, the Czech Republic and Germany are the top three destination countries.[12]

Finally, it is possible that when the number of refugees in first countries of arrival, like Poland, exceeds the absorption capacity of their institutions and societies, onward migration will take place to other countries in the top of preferred destinations. Experiences of diaspora and experiences with accommodation, employment and school and study opportunities of previous Ukrainian refugees probably also play a role in this.