The ministry has already issued a corresponding decree. "According to our research, Ukraine is among the countries where the constitution guarantees citizens basic rights and freedoms, including freedom of movement. Therefore, we see no reason not to include it in the list of safe countries," said Czech Interior Minister Jan Hamáček.
At the same time, he emphasized that those Ukrainians who lived in the occupied territories (in Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk regions) and were forced to leave their homes will still be able to apply for asylum. Recall that official Prague does not recognize the peninsula as Russian and regards the events of 2014 as annexation.
In turn, Czech entrepreneurs fear that the innovation will worsen the already dire situation with labor shortages in the country, especially in the construction sector. As Vinegret.cz notes, Ukrainian citizens have been leading in the number of asylum applications for several years. In 2017, 1,450 foreigners submitted applications, of which 435 were Ukrainians. In second place, with a large gap, were Armenians and Georgians – 129 applications each.