Luxembourg – The European Commission said on Friday it won’t rule out suspending Serbia’s visa-waiver access to the EU if it doesn’t tamp down on irregular migration from its territory to the bloc.
“This is nothing that I will exclude, but I do think, and I do hope, that we will have a good cooperation,” EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson said on arrival to a meeting of EU interior ministers discussing the problem.
Serbia, a non-EU member that is a candidate to one day join the bloc, has a visa-free arrangement for its citizens travelling into the European Union.
But it has riled EU member states by becoming a staging ground for migrants of other nationalities – Syrians, Afghans, Turks, Indians, Burundians, Cubans and Tunisians – seeking to enter the EU.
While those nationalities need EU visas, they don’t for Serbia, which has a broad visa-waiver policy for many countries.
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This year so far, more than 106,000 irregular entries into the EU have been recorded through the so-called western Balkans route that includes Serbia – a hike of 170 percent over the same period last year.
While Syrians and Afghans often have grounds to seek asylum in the EU, many of the other nationalities “need to be returned to their country of origin,” Johansson said.
Austria and Belgium both complain that they are facing a surge in numbers of asylum-seekers at a level unseen since 2015-2016, when more than a million Syrians fleeing war in their country entered the EU.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called Serbia’s visa policy “not very nice” and said it was “based on which states do not recognise Kosovo,” the Serbian province whose ethnic Albanian majority broke away to declare the territory independent in 2008, unrecognised by Belgrade.
Most EU countries, including Germany, recognise Kosovo’s independence, but not Spain, Slovakia, Greece nor Romania.
“Serbia has to adapt its visa practice to the EU if it wants to become an accession candidate,” Faeser said.
Johansson said she would meet representatives of Serbia and other western Balkan nations next week in Berlin, and the following week in Prague.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Unsplash
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