October 06, 2022

Serbia to curb visa-free regime to curb migration to EU

topic:	Immigration
located:	Serbia
editor:	Katarina Panić

Serbia, Austria and Hungary intensified the discussion about migration this week. Firstly, the heads of the states met in Budapest on Monday, and then the meeting on the ministries level took place in Belgrade on Thursday, 6 October. They agreed that Europe’s migration protection line should be moved further south, preferably to the Serbian-North Macedonian border. From Brussels’ point of view, Serbia, as a non-EU state, is too leaky for migration toward its EU neighbours, and something has to be done about it.

With its visa-free policy towards countries like India and Tunisia, Serbia allows an influx of migrants who allegedly try to enter the European Union without permission. The number of people flying to Belgrade as tourists and then passing the EU borders to seek asylum has rapidly increased.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that 188,000 border infringements have already been recorded on the southern border this year, two and a half times more than last year. Besides hosting some 80,000 people from Ukraine, in Austria, about 15,000 people from India and Tunisia requested asylum this year. 

“It is possible to travel to Serbia without a visa from these countries, but this should change by the end of the year,” Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić announced. Brussels stressed that the whole Western Balkan should align its visa policy with the EU. This similarly happened last year when an influx of people from Iran moved to the EU through Serbia. Brussels forced Belgrade to introduce the visa regime to Iran again, which reduced migration from this country. 

In the first eight months of this year, irregular entries at the external borders of the EU increased by 75 percent compared with the same period of last year and is the highest total since 2016, Frontex announced.

Apart from protecting borders and security issues, the global food and energy crisis has pushed forward the businesses that exploit human suffering. It also redirects the migration policy toward readmission and puts the humanitarian approach lower on the list of priorities. For instance, Serbia has welcomed around 10,000 migrants and lacks the additional capacity to accommodate people before winter. In Central and South Eastern Europe, 50 percent of the victims of human trafficking are migrants, the IOM estimates. The CSOs used to be louder and more active while the people from the war zones dominated migration, unlike these days when the economy-driven migration dominates. 

Photo by Red John