If Serbia fails to put a stop to irregular migration from its territory to the bloc, the European Commission will not rule out suspending Serbia’s visa-waiver access to the EU, the EU executive said on Friday (14 October).
“This is nothing that I will exclude, but I do think, and I do hope, that we will have good cooperation,” Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said before a meeting of EU interior ministers in Luxembourg.
Serbia, a candidate state to join the EU, has a visa-free arrangement for its citizens travelling into the bloc.
So far this year, more than 106,000 irregular entries into the EU have been recorded through the so-called Western Balkans route that includes Serbia, a spike of 170% over the same period last year.
While those nationalities need EU visas, most of them – except Syrians and Afghans – do not require them for Serbia, which has a broad visa-waiver policy for many countries.
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 warned.
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 former Serbian province which declared independence in 2008 – a move Belgrade refuses to recognise.
Most EU countries, including Germany, recognise Kosovo’s independence, but not Spain, Slovakia, Greece, Cyprus, and Romania.
“Serbia has to adapt its visa practice to the EU if it wants to become an accession candidate,” Faeser told reporters in Luxembourg.
Commissioner Johansson said she would meet representatives of Serbia and other Western Balkan nations next week in Berlin, and the following week in Prague.
Evaluating enlargement progress in the past year, a European Commission annual report published earlier this week was clear that Serbia must do more to align itself with the bloc.
“Serbia continued to contribute to the management of the mixed migration flows towards the EU by cooperating effectively with its neighbours and EU member states,” the report said.
However, it noted Belgrade “took no steps to align with the EU’s list of visa required third countries”.
This would in particular concern “those third countries which present irregular migration or security risks to the EU, as recommended in the Commission’s visa suspension mechanism report” of last August.
Serbia should align with sanctions and foreign policy, EU Commission report says
Serbia, the biggest EU candidate country in the Western Balkans, has backslid on foreign policy alignment and must step up commitments to EU strategy and reform, according to the enlargement report published on Wednesday (12 October).
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]
Source: euractiv.com
