Financial Aid Shortage for Ukrainian Refugees in Spain

Madrid, March 3 – El Pais newspaper reported on Friday that thousands of Ukrainian refugees in Spain have not received the financial assistance promised to them by the kingdom’s central government in June last year.

Last summer, Spain’s Minister of Integration, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, announced that displaced people with limited resources would receive €400 per family per month, plus €100 per child during their six-month stay in the country. In total, these funds financed by European funds amount to 52.8 million euros.

It is reported that the management of funds has been delegated to the Autonomous Communities, and 70% of the amount was transferred to them in October 2022. However, due to bureaucratic problems, Ukrainian families have not yet received this money.

El Pais consulted all seventeen Spanish autonomous communities on the matter. Of the 16 who responded (the Canary Islands ignored the request), eight admitted that they had not yet offered a single euro to welfare recipients. We are talking about Asturias, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia, Valencia, Galicia, Madrid and Murcia. Castilla y León has not been able to confirm the information. Each community offered different explanations for the delays.

This assistance, intended for refugees who do not depend on the state reception system and live, for example, with relatives or acquaintances without any other economic support, was to be extended to 40,000 people out of the nearly 170,000 Ukrainian refugees who have arrived in Spain since the beginning of the conflict. .

In February, it was reported that Spain had granted temporary protection to nearly 170,000 refugees from Ukraine over the past 12 months. It was determined that 78% of all refugees received protection in the Autonomous Community of Valencia (45,159), Catalonia (38,482), Andalusia (23,922) and the Autonomous Community of Madrid (23,587).