Be or not to Be European. That is the Question: Central European Social Systems Facing the War in Ukraine
Abstract
This contribution aims at mapping and analysing reaction of social systems in Czechia, Slovakia and Poland on the massive influx from Ukraine. It shows that each of the mentioned countries found own solutions, all of them however reacted quickly and quite effectively, at the very beginning strongly sustained by generosity of single persons and NGOs.
Some ad hoc amendments of national legislation could be of inspiration for next thoughts on long-term social reforms. Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have managed to respond quickly and effectively to the influx of refugees and integrate them relatively quickly into their labour markets, health systems and, in some cases, social assistance systems, this may mean a further cultivation of their hitherto relatively closed social systems.
The availability of common European parameters in the form of temporary protection regulated at EU level and national responses to the war in Ukraine, among other things through the activation of solidarity at all levels, may mark a new stage in the further development of social rights and a further impetus to the modernisation of social systems.