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European Union governments will meet next week to discuss new rules that could open the EUs 28 countries to more than 1 million refugees of the Ukrainian war. But, with a conceivably large number of people who may be looking to resettle permanently and a growing backlash against immigrants in many member states, the possible arrangement is creating controversy.

According to the agreement being discussed, Ukrainians could get visa-free travel into the EU by May. That is the same deal people in another ex-Soviet Union country, Moldova, have been enjoying since April last year as part of a program called Eastern Partnership. The EU is employing the program to forge closer ties with several former Soviet nations that could, one day, join the bloc. Besides Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia are also negotiating visa-free travel within the context of the partnership -- but, since the programs inception, Ukraine has descended into a civil war and an economic crisis that make it a far less attractive prospect.

Moldova may be the poorest country in Europe, but it is at peace, and has just 3.5 million inhabitants compared with Ukraines 45. And it does not have more than 1 million internally displaced people driven from their homes because of a civil war.

One of the major fears of the EU interior ministers meeting next week is that opening their borders to Ukrainians could result in a large number entering with no intention of going back. Statistics show thats exactly what has happened with some countries enjoying visa-free travel to the Union.

There have been a couple of experiences in the western Balkans over recent years that have made interior ministers more hesitant to offer visa liberalization now, said Elizabeth Collett, the Brussels-based director of the Migration Policy Institute Europe, a unit of an independent think tank headquartered in Washington.

The number of people from Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia seeking asylum in the EU rose by 40 percent in the first nine months of 2014, compared with the same period the previous year, according to the European Commission, which has requested that the governments of those countries act tocurb abuses. All five nations are participants in the visa-liberalization program, which allows the citizens of non-EU states to enter the bloc without obtaining visas.

Many of those asylum claims were found to be unsubstantiated, Collett said.

This finding has added to a lack of popular appetite for hosting vast numbers of refugees amid an economic crisis in the EU itself, where many see immigrants as competing for jobs, and unemployment has grown to an average of 10 percent from less than 7 percent when the crisis began in 2008. People entering the bloc under the visa-liberalization program are not automatically granted work permits.

The benefits of visa liberalization have been very visible in terms of enhancing people-to-people contacts and business opportunities, a European Commission report said in February. However, misuse of the visa-free travel scheme for seeking asylum in the EU must be addressed systematically.

Yet the issue of Ukraines participation in the visa-free travel initiative is unique and divisive.

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Ukrainians May Get Visa-Free Travel To EU, But War Refugee Crisis Makes Them Less Welcome