What is the current plight of the Russian nationals who were forced to flee to Europe? What is the severity of the situation? What are the possible options for an extended stay in the teeth of the mounting odds of the Russian passport policy being tightened? What are some of the historical precedents of the fast-tracked issuance of such documents? Were they efficient? Is a faster and simple procedure in the cards in 2025?
In March 2025, we completed our research into the problem resulting from the ongoing, incrementally toughening passport policy implemented by the Belarusian authorities and from Russian potentially espousing a similar strategy. Since the Belarusian nationals have already been hit with a ban on having their passports renewed while abroad and the Russians are looking at a similar scenario, between 500,000 and 1,000,000 individuals living in developed countries are now facing a grim scenario. Should it be the case, they can end up having their I.D.’s that help them legally stay abroad expired. This is posing a risk of the E.U.’s migration authorities and bureaucratic structures experiencing a significant overload. Understandably, the plight the people have found themselves in has spurred a search for feasible solutions that would take over the protracted and costly asylum procedures. Our study as well as the suggestions we propose based on our findings argue that a simpler and faster travel document issuance scheme can prove to be an efficient alternative to the full-stage asylum procedure.
The study focuses on the feasibility of a single Europe-wide travel document that would be easier to obtain. Although it will not be on par with an E.U. country passport or grant citizenship to its holder, the document could be issued to anyone with an expired or revoked national passport and properly declared reasons behind the applicant’s inability to obtain a new document. A newly designed document will be supposed to give its holder the right to travel and apply for, and be granted, a visa and a temporary residence permit in the country of stay. The study examines the existing international non-passport residence titles and possible ways to adapt and optimize the issuance practices. Additionally, it looks into the sentiment common among the Russian immigrants living in the E.U. and the Schengen Area and their attitudes toward the issue. Importantly, for the E.U countries, issuing temporary travel documents is hands down more beneficial than documenting refugees, legalizing them, and granting asylum.
The study uses the examples from history where similar situations, including an influx of the post-1917 Revolution Russian émigrés,which promoted the League of Nations to introduced a Nansen passport format, and later other groups of refugees as well, were handled in a joint intergovernmental effort both quickly and efficiently. There was also a series of post-World War II documents designed for the displaced persons (DP) and mechanisms developed by UNHCR in the 1950s in response to the Soviet government rescinding the dissidents’ passports, a move that spurred Western nations to begin elaborating new asylum procedures and alternative I.D.’s (Certificate of Identity, COI). The crisis of the late 20th — early 21st centuries (Yugoslavia, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Syria) also led to the establishment of modern instruments, such as the Emergency Travel Document (ETD), intended for refugees and stateless persons.
However limited, below is a list of mechanisms, precedents and precedents:
- Nansen passport: a historical precedent of international recognition
- Refugee Travel Document (1951 Refugee Convention): few eligible recipients and long procedures
- 1954 Convention travel document: heavily bureaucratized and well-documented evidence as a prerequisite
- Certificate of Identity (COI): low international recognition rate
- Emergency Travel Document (ETD): limited use scenarios
The negative repercussions of the Belarusian authorities refusing to renew the passports are already shaping up. Those abroad have found themselves in a legal void, facing the odds of being persecuted upon the return to their home country. And although the future steps that may be taken by the Russian government are so far unclear, the discussion on revoking the international travel passports of the Russian dissenters, restricting travel opportunities, and replicating the Belarusian practices bolsters the probability of the Russians winding up in the same predicament. Many of the experts and opinion leaders we have interviewed indicate that many of the oppressive Belarusian practices tend to be replicated by the Russian government. To combat the Belarusian authorities’ crackdown, some of the E.U. countries came up with their own I.D.’s purpose-designed for the Belarusians facing a forced return home. E.g., Austria offers a Fremdenpass, intended for foreign nationals in need of extra protection who cannot obtain a new domestic passport from their home countries’ authorities. This document is also available to persons without citizenship and those with an ill-defined status, provided their stay in Austria complies with the local law. There may be exceptions where the stay of the Fremdenpass recipients is just deemed beneficial to Austria.
In response to the Belarusian issue, some EU countries have developed their own mechanisms for issuing special documents to Belarusian citizens.
Lithuania issues a Užsieniečio pasas intended for foreign nationals in possession of a temporary or permanent residence permit but no valid domestic passport in case the latter cannot be objectively obtained in their home countries. On January 1, 2023, Poland amended its legislation to allow Belarusians to apply for, and obtain, Polish travel documents for foreigners, those whose temporary residence stems from humnitarian visas. This change aimed to help the Belarusian nationals having difficulty obtaining their national passports or having them renewed.
Besides, in August 2023, the United Transitional Cabinet of Belarus presented a project of a future alternative domestic passport, that of a “New Belarus.” This document is supposed to be biometric and machine-readable and meet the current international standards. The plan is that once the E.U. government have recognized the document as valid, it will spur the negotiations to extend its validity beyond the E.U. Thus, the Belarusians living in the E.U. and facing difficulty having their national passports renewed may be eligible for travel documents issued by the countries of stay and a potentially internationally valid alternative Belarusian passport.
Listed below are the three fairly realistic models:
- A unified international travel document issued and approved by an global organization (UNHRC or the E.U.).
- A Europe-wide Laissez-Passer to legalize the stay and travel within the Schengen Area..
- Separate national initiatives to issue travel documents or “temporary stay cards.”
Each of the three models has its advantages and downsides and comes with various legal features pertaining to the recipients’ status, I.D. issuance procedures, and the international recognition of the document. For all the activity of human rights advocacy groups and their push to find a solution, it is exacerbated by the cautiousness and sluggishness of the E.U. bureaucracy. In addition, both the Russian and Belarusian diasporas are marked with quantifiably high expectations and heightened anxieties.
Crucially, our study has revealed and corroborated the urgent need for the authorities to come up with feasible procedures to introduce temporary travel documents for a large number of individuals. Significantly, these mechanisms can, and indeed should, be rooted in the current international legal procedures and successful international practices. The implementation of these procedures will help pre-empt a large-scale humanitarian crisis, lower the load faced by the E.U. countries’ immigration agencies, and protect the rights of the people trapped in a serious predicament.
Under the current international law and European regulations, all of the E.U. and Schengen Area countries must provide travel documents to the refugees and stateless persons (Art. 28 of the 1951 Convention; Art. 27 of the 1954 Convention). Pursuant to the updated Directive 2011/95/EU of the European Parliament, the E.U. member-states are obligated to issue travel documents to the individuals eligible for extra protection who cannot obtain a domestic passport. However, despite the unified fundamental principles and legal framework, there is an array of practices that sees the protection and document issuance procedure vary from country to country.
The table below illustrates just that.
The E.U. and Schengen Area countries observe the basic standard whereby refugees arriving in any of the countries qualify for a travel document, and most governments issue it automically once the relevant status is granted. The differences concern the handling of stateless persons and those eligible for extra protection. Some countries have a convenient procedure in place (e.g., Italy relaxed the qualification prerequisites; France and Portugal pursue a lax policy as well). Other governments require undeniable evidence proving the impossibility of an individual obtaining a passport. For instance, Lithuania set unrealistic criteria and denied travel documents before ECHR could deliver a ruling. These discrepancies lead to the system’s efficiency varying on a country basis. Norway and Denmark, both unpopular destinations for refugees and immigrants, invariably grant the requests almost immediately, whereas in France, Finland, and even Italy (in peak load periods), the procedure is slow and overly formalized.
Overall, Europe has seen an exponential increase in the number of travel documents issued since 2017 in the wake of a surge in refugees and persons without citizenship. The largest countries, including Germany, France, and Switzerland, issue tens and even hundreds of thousands of such I.D.’s per year. E.g., in 2023 alone, Germany delivered 216,500 “refugee passports”, which is comparable to the average number of domestic passports issued by a European country. This puts a strain on the administrations that often have difficulty catching up. Many states have been hit with an onslaught of requests amid severe personnel shortages; most notably, it happened in 2022–23, when much of the effort sought to accommodate an inflow of Ukrainians fleeing their country. In some countries, the refugees lamented long waiting times, which could be up to period of six to eight months, which restricted these individuals’ freedom of movement.
A thorough examination of these procedures points to their unwieldiness. The systems that involve local authorities (French prefectures or Italian and Dutch municipalities) feature varying processing speeds, technical flaws and failures, and long lines of applicants. Digitization is not necessarily helpful, either. Worse yet, without due preparation, it can even make things worse. E.g., an online French service has led to even longer waiting times.
The outbreak of the Ukraine war saw hundreds of thousands of Russian and Belarusian nationals flee their countries. Around 650,000 Russians who left shortly after February 2022 are estimated to be still staying abroad in 2024. Most of them reside in the countries bordering Russia, but a sizable share of them are located in the E.U. (ordered by the total number: Germany, Spain, Cyprus, Poland, France, Italy, and Finland). In 2023 alone, the E.U. countries issued 115,000 temporary residence permits to the Russian exiles and 281,000 to the Belarusian ones, which is significant in terms of the diaspora numbers. Many of those hold valid international travel passports issued by their country of origin.
But the odds are mounting that the Russian and Belarusian regimes will clamp down on the exiles and dissidents by revoking or refusing to renew their passports. There are already precedents of partial disenfranchisement, e.g., the government-designated “foreign agents,” “extremists,” and “terrorists” have their financial transactions restricted by Russia’s financial watchdog. And even though the Russian law does not necessarily prevent “foreign agents” from obtaining an international travel passport, the actual issuance is often hindered or halted altogether if there is outstanding claim issued by the Federal Bailiff Service. It can result from something as seemingly trivial as an unpaid fine levied over the lack of “foreign agent” social media markings and a subsequent ban on international travel initiated by the bailiff. If thousands of Russians end up with expired international travel passports, Europe’s unified travel document issuance system may prove to be their only way to avoid being stranded in a country as an illegal alien or asylum-seeker, which would, in turn, overload the immigration and related authorities.
Are the European institutions well-equipped for the above scenario? Fortunately, so far there has not been a deluge of asylum requests coming from the Russian exiles. Normally, the Russian immigrants turn out to be self-reliant enough to obtain a residence permit through educational, investment, entrepreneurial, and even civil partnership or conjugal programs. But an expired passport will prevent them from getting their hard-fought residence permits renewed while returning to Russia may carry a significant political risk of being persecuted and jailed. Meanwhile, these scenarios do not fit the current asylum eligibility criteria. Moreover, we have been witnessing a worrisome trend where every country acts on its own amid a lack of unified Europe-wide procedures to handle this exception scenario. This may be further compounded by local issues. E.g., some national governments may be prejudiced against the Russian applicants and are likely to seek flawlessly substantiated evidence, take more time for deliberation, and then deny the request anyway. To make matters worse, despite their willingness to grant the I.D. requests from the Russian seekers, larger countries like Germany and France feature much longer waiting lines and times (for more details, go to Appendix II). For six months or even a full year, the seeker finds themself undocumented, which is critical for a political exile without a valid passport. They may not obtain a residence permit, get it extended, attend a conference, apply for a visa, etc.