Just six weeks ago, Poland began construction on a wall along its border with neighbouring Belarus. It was meant to ward off refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan who were attempting to reach Europe. The Baltic states, too, were sending more guards to their Belarus border. Refugees were dying at the frontier from exposure and hypothermia being trapped out in the open in winter conditions. Poland and Hungary were among the nations that resisted any attempt to accept asylum-seekers.
Now, these countries and the EU have room for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees fleeing its war. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has promised that everyone will be welcomed. How different is the reception desperate and vulnerable men, women and children are now receiving.
Catherine Woollard, director of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) in Brussels, along with a coalition of dozens of aid organizations, has been dealing with migration policy for years, explained:
"Europe is able to cope now and it was able to cope in 2015, but of course we see a very different response."
Woollard said there were clear double standards when it came to migration policy in the EU.
"We should see this kind of response wherever people in need arrive in Europe."
Yet discrimination persists.
Ukrainians are now free to travel to other EU states, even if they don't possess the legally required biometric passports. Such rules will not, however, apply to third-country passport holders with residency visas for Ukraine — such as students from Africa. Skin colour still determines how a person in need is treated.
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