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Paper short abstract:

Hospitality towards Ukrainian refugees in the EU faces increasing challenges as the Russo-Ukrainian war drags on. This paper explores the contradiction between hospitality towards Ukrainians as a moral/political virtue and its implementation in the housing market in Romania.

Paper long abstract:

Ukrainian refugees enjoyed an unusually warm welcome in the EU as opposed to victims of other recent conflicts.

Although the number of forced migrants from Ukraine surpassed all recent ‘migration crises,’ EU endowed Ukrainian refugees with a bundle of quasi-citizenship rights under the Temporary Protection Directive.

However, this hospitality faces increasing challenges as the Russo-Ukrainian war drags on. European governments report exacerbating problems with housing, cultural integration, and unequal distribution of migrants, while Ukrainians point out lack of social support and employment opportunities as well as occasional conflicts..

These challenges reflect a broader tension between the normative and the political-economic aspects of European migration policy in the context of Russo-Ukrainian war. Addressing this tension, this paper explores the contradiction between hospitality towards Ukrainians as a moral/political virtue and its implementation in the housing market in Romania. Interviews with Ukrainians refugees, Romanian volunteers and civil society activists show that the empathy towards Ukrainian refugees is rooted in class affinity and positive discursive securitisation of Ukrainians. This empathy, however, is restricted to short-term encounters and a limited civil society mobilisation. The reaction of the housing market, however, has been defined by medium-term interest in seeking state funds under the ‘50/20 scheme’. In this sector of the civil society Ukrainian refugees are viewed as a means of appropriating state-distributed funds, thus exacerbating conflicts inherent in unregulated housing market.