Government of Spain launches streamlined and simple system to enable displaced persons from Ukraine to access temporary protection

The Government of Spain has launched the mechanism through which, as of Thursday, displaced persons from Ukraine in our country can easily apply for and access temporary protection and all the rights associated with it, such as residence and work permits.

The Minister for Home Affairs, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and the Minister for Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, signed the order on Wednesday that implements this procedure for the recognition of temporary protection. The text establishes that temporary protection may be requested from specific National Police stations throughout the territory as well as in the authorised reception centres.

Applicants can go to these points where National Police officers will take their identification data and other elements, a process in which language interpreters will be available, and where they will be issued with a receipt accrediting their request for protection, which will also include an assigned NIE (foreign national ID number).

The application will be processed by the Asylum and Refuge Office of the Ministry of Home Affairs and resolved within 24 hours. The decision shall include the residence permit and, in the case of adult applicants, the work permit.

The order establishes that the applicant will receive notification of the decision electronically whenever possible, by post or by personal appearance at police stations or foreign national offices.

EU Agreement

The Government of Spain is thus complying with the agreement reached on 4 March by the Council of Interior Ministers of the European Union, which, for the first time in history, agreed on the application of the Temporary Protection Directive.

This Tuesday, the Council of Ministers agreed to extend the scope of application of this Directive, so that not only Ukrainian nationals, but also legal residents in Ukraine, as well as Ukrainians who were in Spain in an irregular situation prior to the Russian invasion, will be able to access temporary protection through the mechanism set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Temporary protection may be refused, inter alia, if it is established that the applicant, on the basis of a data check against criminal records and international police cooperation databases, may pose a risk to national security.

Unpublished procedure

Since 25 February, the day after the Russian invasion began, and particularly since the decision adopted last week to apply the Temporary Protection Directive, the Ministry of Home Affairs, in coordination with the other ministries involved, has been working on the legal, procedural and technical framework necessary to implement this regulation.

The departments involved (the Secretariat of State for Security, the Under-Secretariat of the Interior and dependent units such as the Asylum and Refuge Office, the General Commissariat for Aliens and Borders and the Sub-Directorate General for Information and Communications Systems for Security) have carried out the necessary work to analyse and design the procedure for requesting temporary protection, to draw up the different resolution documents and to develop the IT managers.

This work has led to the order issued and to the holding this Wednesday afternoon of an extraordinary Interministerial Commission on Asylum and Refugees (CIAR) - in which, in addition to the Interior, the Ministries of Justice; Inclusion, Social Security and Migration; Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation; and Equality; and representatives of the UNHCR have participated - which has studied and formalised an agreement that allows the processing of applications from displaced Ukrainians to be speeded up.

Information leaflets will also be provided in different languages, explaining the rights of applicants and the procedure for the recognition of temporary protection, which will be available to displaced persons, among others, at the points set up to process applications.

Non official translation