The European Commission is promising to hand over billions of euros for the reconstruction of Ukraine. But studies suggest that many Ukrainian refugees who have fled to EU countries to escape the war won’t want to return once the conflict is over, anyway.
A working paper from Germany’s ifo Institute says that “in the most optimistic scenario,” the expected return rate is just 47%. That would mean well more than two million Ukrainians staying across different member states. A similar situation has played out among Syrian refugees, despite the war there ending in December last year.
In “the most pessimistic scenario”—“which involves territorial losses, no security guarantees, and weak economic and institutional development”—just 3% of refugees would return.
It is fitting that the study should have emerged from Germany, given the roughly tenfold increase in the number of Ukrainian asylum seekers entering Germany after Kyiv relaxed exit rules for young men at the end of August.
Stefan Löw, who represents the AfD in the Bavarian State Parliament, complained that those who arrive “immediately receive citizen’s income.” Even officials from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s own party, the centre-right CDU, have warned that too much is being spent on this allowance.
The expected return rates are much lower than suggested by previous studies, and are likely to continue falling as the conflict drags on.
Almost a million and a quarter Ukrainian refugees were living in Germany alone at the end of August, according to Eurostat data. Just shy of a million were living in Poland, and a further 385,000 in Czechia.
The European Central Bank noted in 2022, shortly after Russia’s invasion, that the influx of Ukrainian refugees will have “important implications … for the fiscal resources, housing and the provision of public services in euro area countries.”
Yet EU officials earlier this year unveiled a roadmap for managing the future of these refugees, including the option for them to stay in the bloc after the war is over. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen boasted that “since 2022, we have provided protection for those fleeing Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and we continue to do so.”
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
