We have seen so many stories and social media posts on how the Ukrainian Refugees are consider more important as compared to undesirable (economic) Refugees from other parts of the World. Many argue that geographic proximity places a role in developing relevant elements of empathy and on the other hand many place arguments that everyone should be equal. The later argument is more closer to the European convention of rights and the former is more related to the cultural proximities not the geographical ones and here is why. What we don't know or remember is how the Refugee Policies were contested during Yugoslavian war (1991-2002) when Bosnian Refugees tried to flee from former Yugoslavian states to European and non-Yugoslavian countries such as Austria. 

Different polices were applied on the Refugees that arrives in Western Europe. An Article in intereconmics by Barslund et al (2017) [1] provides us how different western countries treated their asylum polices against new arrivals from Yugoslavian countries. Lets look at the table 2 from the same article [1]. This shows how the legal framework was set at the time of Yugoslavian war. Geographically speaking the Bosnia lies in Europe and if I may quote reporters from BBC, CNN and Ukrainian Ministers, "they have blonde hair and blue eyes" as well and not from "third world" countries. So, now we have a relatively comparative study with respect to the geographical proximity.