Slovenia ready to accept 200,000 Ukrainian refugees
STA, 27 February 2022 – Slovenia has the capacity to receive between 180,000 and 200,000 refugees from Ukraine, Interior Minister Aleš Hojs said on Sunday. “At least that’s what we’ve been discussing in recent days,” he told reporters after Sunday’s informal meeting of EU interior ministers.
Hojs pointed out that the figure was based on the experience of the Yugoslav wars in the early 1990s, when Slovenia hosted more than 300,000 refugees from the Yugoslav republics.
Slovenia has expressed its readiness to accept Ukrainian refugees since the beginning of the Russian invasion, but did not provide any concrete figures.
Hojs said that Slovenia would “take care of them to the best of its ability”, as they come from a nearby neighborhood.
The government has today activated emergency telephone numbers where those interested can turn for help. Dozens of calls are expected in the first hours, and then the number could increase sharply.
Data from the European Commission show that more than 300,000 Ukrainian refugees have already entered the EU, most of them through Poland.
At the meeting, Slovenia also supported the first activation of the 2001 directive on temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of displaced persons.
Although the directive is somewhat outdated, its activation is extremely important and Slovenia has already started all activities related to this directive, such as the preparation of accommodation for refugees, Hojs said.
One thing the directive allows is the relocation of refugees between Member States. The minister’s specific figures were not discussed today, but Hojs said that this “would not be problematic” for Slovenia, as it is ready to accept significantly more refugees than an agreement with the EU would require.
The minister also called for tougher visa sanctions against Russia. “Until every Russian citizen feels how crazy the president is, a mass movement against the authoritarian system will not emerge.
Another issue on the agenda was the risk of hybrid attacks. Slovenia has so far not detected any major hybrid threats, but Hojs said that all relevant services are fully prepared to prevent attacks on Slovenian infrastructure as much as possible.
Asked whether Slovenia was ready to supply weapons to Ukraine, the minister said that the government had already adopted a decree on this, but that this was confidential information that the public did not know.