Unexpected migration woes

EU threatened to suspend visa-free access for Serbia and Albania unless problem was addressed

By Bestalex - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org

- Advertisement -

Migration has bedeviled the EU over the last several years with waves of migrants from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia illegally crossing into the bloc via Turkey or by sea from the Mediterranean. Managing this flow is not easy as the current rules known as the “Dublin Redistribution Formula” are hard to apply. Northern countries simply do not want to take migrants who crossed into Europe through its southern members.

These largely unskilled and poorly educated migrants have been cynically weaponized by unfriendly non-EU neighbors – principally Turkey and Belarus – and pushed across Europe’s borders and onto the sovereign territory of Greece, Poland and Spain. This was a conscious strategy by Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko to punish or blackmail those countries to exact concessions from them and/or the EU.

New trends emerge in the Western Balkans 

A curious migration source of a third kind has emerged recently in the Western Balkans. Nationals from African and Asian countries travel visa-free to Serbia where they “disappear”, only to reappear in Austria, Slovenia and other EU countries. Recent data has shown a sharp increase in asylum applications from people coming from India, Cuba, Tunisia and Burundi.

All of these countries have a visa-free entry agreement with Serbia, most of them established only recently. The German interior minister has suggested that all these countries, which coincidently do not recognize Kosovo, have been rewarded by Belgrade for denying Kosovo’s independence. Other senior EU ministers believe Serbia is attempting to destabilize Europe by flooding it with migrants at the behest of Russia.

Those illegal migrants that are turned back at Serbia’s EU borders are reported to be living in temporary squats inside northern Serbia close to the borders with EU member countries.

In the case of Albania, Tirana may not be Moscow-oriented, or demonstratively Kremlin-friendly, but its work-visa arrangements with third countries are presenting the same problem for the EU. While laborers from Bangladesh may come via employment agencies to work in Albania, they usually vanish after a few months and re-emerge in one of the nearest European Union member countries.

In the latest annual report by FRONTEX, Europe’s border protection agency, it noted that there has been a tripling of irregular entries from the so-called ‘Balkan Route’ for migrants, who are now mainly using Belgrade’s airport as the first point of entry.

EU considers new restrictions

The worsening situation has been met with certain forceful responses by East European national governments, some of which have suspended the freedom-of-movement Schengen border regime to block the flow of undocumented migrants. In September, four EU members – including Germany and Austria, along with non-EU member Switzerland, though it participates in the borderless Schengen area – wrote to the European Commission asking it to finally find a solution to the problem.


Both of the troublemaking Western Balkan governments appear to have obliged, or at least they have sent Brussels indications that their visa-free entry rules are being reviewed. Having the right of their citizens to travel visa-free across the EU either suspended or modified in any way would be utterly politically unpalatable for Albania’s leader, Edi Rama, and his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic.

This episode clearly illustrates the corrosive direction that some Western Balkan countries have been moving in the past decade. Instead of developing and cultivating Western institutions and values, as well as reliably cooperating with the European Union, with whom they genuinely hope to benefit, they instead regularly breach agreements with Brussels when it suits them.

For its part, Brussels has, in the case of the migrant problem, proven that the EU’s feckless bureaucrats are persuasive only when they carry a big stick against those that openly mock them.

EU Home Affairs ministers plan to hold an extraordinary meeting to discuss current problems with migration on Nov. 25, covering all current entry routes, the Czech EU Presidency announced on November 17.

- Advertisement -

Subscribe to our newsletter

Latest

EU Commission plans Russian gas phaseout as MEPs propose easing pre-winter storage targets

Ensuring gas supply security ahead of the winter season,...

What chance for peace in Sudan?

The conflict in Sudan has raged for two years,...

The ruling of the EU Court on “Golden passports” and the consequences in Tirana

“Whatever the European Court decides," and “If it says...

Don't miss

EU Commission plans Russian gas phaseout as MEPs propose easing pre-winter storage targets

Ensuring gas supply security ahead of the winter season,...

What chance for peace in Sudan?

The conflict in Sudan has raged for two years,...

The ruling of the EU Court on “Golden passports” and the consequences in Tirana

“Whatever the European Court decides," and “If it says...

Taking off: Qatar’s strategic rise in global aviation

For Qatar, an important development took place recently as...

From shovels to shadows: The Soviet legacy behind Georgia’s authoritarian drift

In the early hours of April 9, 1989, Soviet paratroopers launched a brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters in Tbilisi, the capital of the then-Georgian...

EU Commission plans Russian gas phaseout as MEPs propose easing pre-winter storage targets

Ensuring gas supply security ahead of the winter season, the European Parliament approved in Strasbourg on May 8 the Commission's proposal to extend the...

What chance for peace in Sudan?

The conflict in Sudan has raged for two years, causing immense human suffering, regional instability, arms proliferation and massive displacement of the population. South...

The ruling of the EU Court on “Golden passports” and the consequences in Tirana

“Whatever the European Court decides," and “If it says it can’t be done, we won’t do it; if it says it can, we will.”This...

Taking off: Qatar’s strategic rise in global aviation

For Qatar, an important development took place recently as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), approved the final phase of its own airspace, the...

False economy: Washington will regret closing important diplomatic posts

At this point many readers will have seen press reports indicating that a large number of American embassies and consulates are being studied for...

The Geoeconomic Repercussions of Trump’s Tariff Pause: A Balkan Perspective

On April 2, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs under the banner of “Liberation Day”—a dramatic economic maneuver that reintroduced a 10...

Farewell to Pope Francis, the last champion of the left

The first political consequence of the death of Pope Francis is for sure that the left side of Italy’s political spectrum has lost its...