A Change of Heart? Explaining Central Europe’s Puzzling Acceptance of Ukrainian Refugees

In 2015 Central Europe stood at the forefront of anti-migration positions in the EU. Right-wing populists across the region securitised refugees by presenting them as an existential threat. By March 2022, Poland and Czechia received some of the highest numbers of Ukrainian refugees with open arms. How can we explain this change of heart? And is it really a change of heart? Last year, the enthusiastic welcome of Ukrainian refugees came as a pleasant surprise to us. What did we miss? We believe that we should have focussed less on the securitisation of migration and more on area studies and ontological security. Drawing on this literature we propose a nuanced, contextual and historically grounded reflection of the 2022 refugees’ acceptance in contrast to 2015. Studying the Czech and Polish cases, we counterintuitively argue that the welcome of refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine strengthened both states’ domestic ontological security.