Czech Interior Minister Vít Rakušan, representing the EU Council Presidency, and European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, meeting on Thursday 3 November in Tirana, welcomed “the commitment of the Western Balkan countries to rapidly align their visa policy with that of the EU”.
In particular, they “welcomed Serbia’s concrete commitment to end several visa-free regimes by the end of 2022 and the first step it has taken in this regard”, said an EU Council press release following an EU/Western Balkans ministerial meeting, the first day of which was devoted to home affairs.
The first measure announced by Serbia concerns Burundi, whose citizens are expected to lose their visa-free regime for travel to Serbia by the end of this year.
Belgium has complained in recent months about the new and significant arrival of Burundian nationals seeking asylum, whereas this nationality was not previously strongly represented in the applications lodged in Belgium. According to Belgium, these arrivals were facilitated by the visa-free regime for Burundian citizens who then irregularly cross the EU borders.
On 14 October in Luxembourg (see EUROPE 13043/1), the EU Home Affairs Ministers had also expressed their concern about migration flows to the EU, which they considered to be abnormal and linked to the visa-free regimes granted by some Balkan countries to other third countries, such as the regimes offered by Serbia and Albania to countries such as Burundi, India or Bangladesh. They had threatened the Western Balkan countries to abolish in turn their visa-free regime with the EU countries.
The EU and Western Balkan partners “discussed the urgent situation along the Western Balkan migration route, which has seen a sharp increase in the number of irregular migrants since the beginning of 2022”, the statement said, putting some member states’ asylum systems under pressure.
The ministers “agreed to strengthen the monitoring of trends along the route and to reinforce border management, including by using the presence and mandate of Frontex in the region”.
The officials present in Tirana “also stressed the need to strengthen cooperation with the airlines concerned as well as with the countries of origin on the issue of migration”, the statement added.
The discussion also focused on the fight against migrant smuggling, with the launch of “a regional operational partnership against migrant smuggling aimed at strengthening police and judicial cooperation against criminal smuggling networks”. The partnership will also strengthen information and awareness-raising campaigns on the risks of migrant smuggling and irregular migration.
Cooperation in dealing with the security impact of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine was another topic of discussion, the statement said. “The Ministers exchanged views on the impact of the war in Ukraine on internal security and agreed to intensify their exchange of information, including through Europol, and their operational cooperation through the European Multidisciplinary Platform against Criminal Threats (EMPACT)”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)