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European countries have already suffered a massive economic blowback from their governments’ ill-thought-out Ukraine-first policy, in the form of soaring prices and creeping deindustrialisation. This has triggered an anti-establishment populist insurgency which is undermining mainstream parties across the continent — and which is expected to be the big winner in the upcoming European elections.

Now, another Ukraine-related crisis may be about to explode. And the canary in the coal mine, as is often the case these days, is Germany — the EU’s former powerhouse turned, once again, sick man of Europe.

Since the start of the war, EU countries have offered temporary protection status to around 4.2 million Ukrainian refugees. Of these, around a third of the total — or 1.3 million people — have been taken in by Germany. No other country has accepted as many.

This “open doors” policy initially enjoyed near-unanimous support among the German public and virtually all political parties. But that has started to change. Over the weekend, Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Ukrainian refugees in Germany to take up work as a condition for securing their right to stay in the country. His words come amid growing concern — among both the general public and the political establishment — for the very high unemployment rate among Ukrainian refugees: less than 20% of them are employed, compared with much higher employment rates in other countries.

Many blame this situation on the decision made at the start of the war to automatically grant unemployment benefits to all Ukrainian refugees, who as a result receive much more generous state benefits than ordinary asylum seekers. Thus, around 700,000 Ukrainians in Germany are currently receiving unemployment benefits. What’s more, it’s not even clear that all those getting paid are actually Ukrainian.

German politicians are now calling for such benefits to be curtailed. Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz is among those leading the charge. He has said that such payouts cannot and should not be financially maintained, and that instead the state should send a strong signal to refugees: “We want you to return to the job market as quickly as possible.”

Thus Scholz’s words should be seen as an effort at containing the latest political backlash against his government’s policies before the European elections — a desperate attempt at damage control. The Chancellor emphasised the connection between employment and permanent residency: “In Germany, anyone who works here and doesn’t do anything wrong is pretty sure that he or she can stay here. Security of residence also arises through employment.” This implies that the chronically unemployed might see their status revoked.

To further complicate things, the German government is now facing calls from Kyiv for European countries to repatriate Ukrainian male refugees of fighting age. Faced with massive shortages of army personnel, Zelensky is desperately trying to get these men to return to the country. To that end, his government recently announced that all men between the ages of 18 and 60 who are currently living abroad will no longer be able to renew their passports. This leaves a stark choice for men subject to military service whose papers are expiring: head back to Ukraine or ask for asylum protection.

This puts the German government in a tight spot, as it now finds itself divided between two self-contradictory commitments: being a “safe haven” for Ukrainian refugees — including the 256,000 men between the ages of 18 and 60 currently present in the country — or doing “whatever it takes” to help Ukraine in its war against Russia. Some politicians are calling for Germany to issue replacement documents for Ukrainian conscripts whose passports have expired, while others — primarily from the CDU — are in favour of encouraging conscripts to return home. The interior minister of the German state of Hesse, the CDU’s Roman Poseck, said this month that Germany should “help Ukraine to rely on men who have fled abroad but can be involved in the war”.

While Scholz said the shortage of documentation would not affect Ukrainians’ protected status, the protection granted by the European Union expires next year. Expect this debate to ramp up in the following months — and the EU’s Ukraine policy to continue crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions.