As expected,on Monday 5 December, on the eve of the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Tirana, Albania (see related article),the European Commission presented its action plan to better control migration flows to the EU from the Western Balkans route.
On the same day, the Commission presented its assessment of the current visa liberalisation regimes in the same Western Balkan countries.
The action plan contains a list of 20 actions, mainly commitments and work streams already on the table.
It is the counterpart of the plan presented a fortnight ago for the Central Mediterranean migration route (see EUROPE 13067/7) and aims to respond to the increase in arrivals to the EU via this route: 130,000 attempts to cross the EU’s external borders illegally by this route have been recorded by Frontex since the beginning of the year.
The action plan, presented by Commissioner Ylva Johansson and Vice-President Margarítis Schinás, is organised around 5 pillars: - strengthening border management; - support for the capacities of the asylum systems of the Balkan countries, both in terms of reception of asylum seekers and speed of procedures; - the fight against smuggling networks; - strengthening cooperation on readmission and returns; - the continuation of the policy of aligning the visa-free regimes issued by the Western Balkan countries to third countries with EU rules.
Amongst concrete actions, the EU is committed to strengthening the asylum capacity of its Western Balkan partners, including in the context of the accession perspective, and supports reception throughout the region through an ongoing region-wide IPA programme. The aim is to support the accommodation and basic needs of migrants and refugees based on the model of the pilot programme of the multi-purpose reception centre in Lipa, Bosnia.
To combat people smugglers, a new Europol task force will operate at the border between Serbia and Hungary with the possibility of replicating it at other borders.
For the EU, this will mean resuming and concluding negotiations on the Commission’s proposal to sanction transport operators involved in facilitating the smuggling of migrants or trafficking in persons.
It is also about strengthening the deployment of Frontex in these countries, with new status agreements between Frontex and the Western Balkan countries to provide a new legal framework for this.
As regards action on the alignment of visa-free regimes, the vice-president said on Monday that it was “unacceptable” for Western Balkan countries to offer visa-free regimes to third-country nationals who then exploit loopholes in EU rules. However, both officials noted the progress made with Serbia, which recently announced that it would abolish the visa-free regimes it offers to citizens of Burundi and Tunisia, with a similar decision expected soon for India.
Today, most people arriving in the Western Balkans without a visa and then in the EU “go through Serbia”, the commissioner said, although other countries are affected by these problems of visa policy alignment.
Western Balkan countries still deserve visa-free regimes with the EU
In its 5th report on the subject, published on 5 December, the Commission considers that Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, but also Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, still meet the criteria for visa-free travel to the EU. All countries concerned continue to meet the requirements for visa liberalisation and have made progress in implementing last year’s recommendations, the Commission writes.
On migration, all the countries assessed have continued to take measures to combat illegal immigration, but more needs to be done on the alignment of visa policies, the report says. The report also notes that more asylum applications were lodged in 2021 by nationals of these countries, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that recognition rates have increased.
On security, too, further progress is needed, “especially against high-level corruption, where efforts are still hampered by the limited capacity and legal status of anti-corruption agencies and the low number of trials and convictions”, the Commission writes.
The fight against transnational organised crime networks must also be intensified in cooperation with Europol and by increasing their participation in the activities of the European EMPACT network.
On golden passports, “countries granting citizenship in exchange for investment should abolish or refrain from implementing such schemes”.
‘Restricted’ ministerial meeting on secondary flows
On the evening of Tuesday 6 December, prior to the formal meeting of the ‘Home Affairs’ Council, Belgium will also bring together ten or so Member States to discuss the issue of secondary movements within the EU and the application of the current ‘Dublin’ rules, which are currently being revised.
France, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark will be invited as well as the European Commission and the Czech Presidency of the EU Council.
The latter has also prepared a roadmap on the application of the ‘Dublin’ rules, which it will also submit to the interior ministers for approval on 8 December.
The Roadmap calls on Member States to improve the prevention of asylum-seeker absconding - due to the failure of so-called ‘Dublin’ transfer policies (returning an asylum-seeker to the first country where his or her application was registered) - or to strengthen their transfer procedures and flexibility at the time of transfer.
Link to reports: https://aeur.eu/f/4hc ; https://aeur.eu/f/4hd (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)