The European Commission will grant Poland €144.6 million from the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund for helping refugees from Ukraine, while Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia will receive €39 million, €27 million, €21 million, and €15 million respectively.
The Commission is to disburse €248 million among the member states that accepted the most refugees from Ukraine fleeing from war. Poland, which received the biggest number of refugees, will be the biggest beneficiary of this help, Polish RMF FM radio reports.
On Tuesday (17 May), Polish President Andrzej Duda complained that Poland and Hungary had not received money from the EU to help the refugees.
“I have no doubt that such policy undermines the European unity, but we will anyway do everything in our power so that our guests from Ukraine feel here like at home,” he said after meeting his Hungarian counterpart Katalin Novak, quoted by the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily.
Some Polish politicians have already criticised the amount Poland will receive.
“The sum granted by the Commission is too little,” said Paweł Kukiz, former rock musician and founder of the Kukiz ’15 party that is not a part of the ruling coalition but supports the government. Instead, the world should focus on “protecting some Ukrainian territories, for instance, these neighbouring with Poland,” Kukiz told the public Polish Radio.
Since 24 February, about 3.5 million Ukrainian refugees have crossed the Polish border, the border guard announced. But according to official data, more Ukrainians are now returning to their homeland rather than staying in Poland.
On Wednesday, 21,500 Ukrainians entered Poland, while 28,000 returned to Ukraine. In total, about 1.38 million Ukrainians have left Poland and returned to Ukraine.
The Commission pledged to spend €400 million on the support for Ukrainian refugees in the EU member states during the Donors’ Conference that took place in Warsaw in April.