Emergencies don’t wait for paperwork. A modest, time-limited “Safe Transit” template could help Europe move people out of danger quickly and predictably – without changing who gets to stay.

Crises are faster. Movement is, too.

Across Europe, emergency responders now juggle fires, floods, evacuations and medical lifts at very short notice. In 2024, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism received 93 new requests for assistance, from severe weather at home to crisis situations further afield. That number is not abstract; it shows how often authorities are already coordinating life-saving logistics under pressure.

The global backdrop is equally sobering. By the end of 2024, the UN Refugee Agency estimated 123.2 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide. By mid-2025, the figure still stood at 117.3 million – both record highs for their respective moments. In the same year 2024, the UN migration agency recorded at least 8,938 people dead or missing on migration routes, the deadliest year on record.

Behind those headline numbers is a surge of sudden-onset crises that force people to move at speed. UN data show that in 2024 there were 65.8 million new displacements inside countries, and roughly 45.8 million of them – around two-thirds – were triggered by disasters such as floods, storms and earthquakes rather than by conflict and violence. Over the last decade, climate-related disasters alone have caused about 250 million displacements worldwide. Inside the EU, disasters induced by natural hazards now account for a large share of civil-protection requests, and in 2024 the Union’s civil-protection system helped safely evacuate almost 1,400 European citizens from places like Haiti, the Middle East or Vanuatu. None of this argues for open borders. But it does suggest that, in the most intense weeks of a crisis, short, documented movements to safety will keep appearing on Europe’s operational to-do list.

What already exists – and what is missing

International law offers important tools, but they do not fully cover this narrow “safe transit” space. The 1951 Refugee Convention guarantees protection against refoulement and the right to seek asylum, but it does not create a clear, short-term transit regime for people who already have an onward solution.

Soft-law frameworks go further, but still only part of the way. The Global Compact on Refugees encourages temporary humanitarian admission and evacuation programmes. UNHCR’s guidelines on Temporary Protection or Stay Arrangements describe how states can offer fast, time-bound protection during sudden mass influxes. The Nansen Initiative’s Protection Agenda recommends similar approaches for people displaced by disasters. All three point toward a similar idea: in extreme situations, it makes sense to let people in quickly and temporarily, while longer-term options are worked out.

Operationally, there are also successful precedents. Emergency Transit Centres, such as the one in Timișoara, Romania, host evacuees for a short period while they are screened and prepared for resettlement elsewhere. Protection transfer arrangements have allowed small groups of particularly at-risk people to be moved to a temporary hub country, processed there, and then relocated. These arrangements are practical and humane – but they are negotiated case by case, rather than drawn from a general template that any willing state can pick up and use.

Within the European Union, the Temporary Protection Directive is another important tool, as its activation for people fleeing the war in Ukraine has shown. But it is designed to offer temporary residence and a package of rights for a year or more, with possible extensions. That is a different function from very short transit of a few days to link a person in danger with a flight, a hospital bed or a documented family-reunion visa. The new Pact on Migration and Asylum, which entered into force in June 2024 and will apply from 2026, focuses on harmonised border procedures and responsibility-sharing. A transit template would sit next to that, not inside it.

A modest suggestion from our own drafting table

Against this backdrop, I have been working on a Safe Transit concept – offered here simply as a contribution to public debate. It is deliberately narrow: event-bound, time-bound and respectful of national sovereignty.

In my working drafts, transit is capped at up to five days. Entry and exit are logged, and any overstay triggers a standard review. Screening takes place at embarkation or the point of entry, as states prefer. Each person is issued a Transit Identification Document linking their identity, itinerary and the transit window. A short Transit Request Form is completed at the start and a Transit Report at the end, with manifests, border logs and a simple cost breakdown so that movements and reimbursements are verifiable.

To help frontline services and taxpayers, a small Solidarity Fund is proposed. States that choose to participate would make a modest annual contribution based on GDP, plus a fixed amount per verified transit person. Claims would be paid only after basic checks. Nothing in this model affects a state’s right to refuse transit on security grounds, or a person’s right to seek asylum. If someone claims international protection, they step out of the transit track and into the ordinary national procedure.

How it could complement Europe’s toolbox

The idea is not to redesign Europe’s migration architecture, but to add one small, practical tool to it. Safe Transit, as we imagine it, is about logistics plus law for very short, lawful passages when an onward solution already exists: a medical transfer, a confirmed flight, a documented family reunion. It would complement existing civil-protection practice, which already supports evacuations, and would not prejudge the choices of any capital about long-term stay.

In practical terms, this could look quite mundane. After a volcanic eruption shuts down a regional hub, pre-cleared travellers with confirmed tickets might be escorted for a few days across a land border to another airport. They are screened, issued transit IDs, and leave within the agreed window. Authorities file one short Transit Report and recover part of their costs. After a major earthquake, patients with medical transfer documents could cross by road to a partner hospital abroad under the same logic: documented entry, documented exit, simple cost-sharing afterwards.

Reasonable questions – and a quiet case for trying

Would such a template attract more people? The answer, in my view, lies in its design. It is only activated for specific events, limited in time, and reserved for people who already have proof of onward travel or a clearly defined programme. It channels movements that typically occur anyway during crises, but makes them safer and more predictable.

Is this relocation by another name? No. Transit is not settlement. The five-day limit is explicit, and asylum claims continue to follow established national procedures, as they do today.

Who pays? Participating states could test a base contribution plus a per-person reimbursement, with audited claims. The goal is not new bureaucracy, but a clearer and more predictable alternative to repeated ad-hoc budgeting each time a crisis hits.

In the end, this is a proposal about good housekeeping in bad times. Countries will continue to face fires, floods, earthquakes and conflicts that force people to move suddenly. A light, optional transit template would not solve every problem. But it could make some very hard days slightly easier – for border services, for humanitarian actors and, above all, for the people who only need a few lawful days to move from danger to an already agreed destination.

Maral Rahymova is a Turkmen diplomat based in Brussels. The views expressed are personal.