The Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) and the Eastern Partnership (Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) continue to meet the criteria that allow them to benefit from the visa liberalisation regime for their citizens, according to the monitoring report published by the European Commission on Wednesday 4 August.
Overall, it considers that all these countries have made progress in implementing the recommendations of the 2020 report (see EUROPE 12525/22), although further efforts are still needed in some areas.
In its assessment, the Commission has taken into account the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic-related restrictions on migration trends, which have led in particular to a significant reduction in irregular border crossings, returns and asylum applications.
Thus, while it does observe an overall decrease in the number of irregular border crossings, it considers that the receiving capacity of some Western Balkan countries continues to give rise to “concerns”, particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that improvements are needed.
Asylum applications also experienced a temporary sharp decline in spring 2020, followed by a rapid recovery. The Commission recognises that, in general, the number of applications has remained well below pre-pandemic levels, but nevertheless believes that several countries need to continue to address the problem of unfounded asylum claims, including Albania, Georgia and Ukraine.
The report also points out that high-level corruption remains “a matter of concern”, particularly in Moldova and Ukraine where the capacity of anti-corruption agencies is still limited and the number of convictions in corruption cases that have gone to trial remains low.
The Commission also states that visa-exempt countries that grant citizenship in exchange for investment should abolish such schemes, so as to prevent nationals of other countries subject to the visa requirement from circumventing the EU’s short-stay visa procedure.
See the report: https://bit.ly/3jakNAP (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)