TIRANA, Sept. 9 – Germany has officially designated Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro as “safe countries of origin,” a move that makes it tougher for citizens of the three Western Balkan states to win their asylum cases and allows for their faster processing and deportation.
Other countries in the region, like Serbia and Macedonia, had already been designated as safe.
In the first seven months of 2015, Germany received almost 200,000 requests for asylum. More than four in 10 of those applicants came from the Western Balkans. Almost 30,000 of those people came from Albania — and a similar number from neighboring Kosovo.
Germany sees these as economic migrants and has vowed to deport them all once their claims are proceed. Hundreds have already been deported, and banned from travel to any Schengen country in the next five years.
Tirana had earlier called on Berlin to declare Albania a safe country, thus to legally eliminate the lure of people traveling to the European Union as asylum seekers.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel made the news public in Berlin as part of an overall plan to taking care of refugees and speeding up the processing of asylum applications.
Under the plan, asylum applicants from the Western Balkan countries are to be made to stay in preliminary reception centers before being deported more quickly than they have been in the past.
“Whoever can be shown to be ineligible for permanent residency must leave the country,” Merkel said, also announcing that social benefits for those subject to deportation will be reduced.
Germany also said it would allow Western Balkan residents to live in Germany if they have job offers and apply from their home countries.
“People from these states who can provide evidence of employment or a training position will be able to work here,” Merkel said.
