<![CDATA[The activation of Council Directive 2001/55/EC on 4 March 2022 is commonly read as evidence that the European Union has acquired the capacity to govern mass displacement. This article questions that reading. Drawing on the activation decision, the four successive extension decisions adopted between 2023 and 2026, and the crisis instrument contained in the 2024 reform package, it argues that the Union treated the response to displacement from Ukraine as an exception rather than as a model, and that this treatment was deliberate. Three lines of evidence support the argument: the political rather than legal reasons for two decades of non-use of the Directive; the administrative logic through which each annual extension has been justified, which defends protection by reference to the burden its withdrawal would place on asylum systems; and the design of Regulation (EU) 2024/1359, which routes future mass arrivals through accelerated asylum procedures rather than through group protection outside them. The article concludes that the Union has demonstrated a capacity to open rapidly under conditions that do not generalise, and that this capacity should not be confused with a durable governance mechanism.]]>
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