In an effort to stop a trend of irregular migration and protect the visa-free regime, Albanian authorities are preventing hundreds of would-be travelers from leaving the country
By A. D. BALLA
DURRES, April 21 – The man is angry as he approaches the television cameras at the seaport border clearance area.
“It’s my fourth time here. I brought the documents they asked for, and they have come up with yet another excuse not to let me cross,” he says. “My only fault is having been born in Kukës and wanting to visit my family in Italy.”
Kukës, a city in northeastern Albania and one of the country’s poorest regions, has been at the epicenter of a trend that has seen thousands of Albanians leave with intention to seek a better life in Western Europe, often filing unfounded asylum claims in places like Germany.
In an effort to stop a trend and protect the visa-free regime Albania has with much of Western Europe, Albanian authorities are turning back hundreds of would-be travelers every day and coming increasingly under accusations of implementing virtual exit visas based on where the traveler was born as well as his or her social status.
Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri said in a press conference this week he is aware of the complaints, but added that authorities needed to do a risk assessment for each traveler before they were allowed to leave the country – in order to protect Albania’s international obligations.
The risk assessment includes seeking hard copy documents such as proof of host and proof of funds that were once not typically requested to leave the country. They are usually demanded from what authorities see as people of high-risk of seeking asylum – mostly poor Albanians from rural areas and the country’s Roma citizens.
Several media outlets reporting from rural areas in southwestern and northeastern Albania indicate hundreds of people have already left, with the phenomenon most visible in a sharp drop in schoolchildren. It is an indication that this is not the typical migration pattern, in which usually young men depart alone, it’s a migration trend for young families.
Levan, an area of Fier County with a large Roma population, has seen a spike in passport applications, and interviews with local residents done by a local television station, A1 Report, showed many people — Roma and non-Roma alike — were selling their meager belongings to make the trip to Germany.
“Some of my own local government office workers have left,” Levan Mayor Xheladin Malaj told the TV station.
The German and French ambassadors went on a popular talk show to emphasize there would be no economic asylum and all these would-be migrants would be deported and banned from traveling to the Schengen area for five years.
Ambassador Hellmut Hoffmann said Germany does not need low-skilled economic immigrants. If people want to migrate legally they should follow the rules, find a job offer and apply for a work visa with the embassy, if they meet the qualifications, he said.
“My appeal to everyone is that this [seeking asylum] is not the right way,” Hoffmann said. “It is very important to not look for the blame at someone else.”
Prime Minister Edi Rama said there was lack of proper information on what constitutes proper migration and it was being used “by criminal elements to manipulate people and take their money,” adding the government had made it very clear that there are no jobs and no social assistance awaiting in Germany for economic migrants.
The number of Albanians seeking asylum in Germany has drastically increased recently.
“This is a dramatic development, not only for Albania, but for the entire Western Balkan region. As for Albania, the figures increased drastically by the end of 2013. … There are 36,000 people in total from Albania,” Hoffmann told Rudina Xhunga’s Shqip television show.
The issue has also turned political, as opposition Democratic Party leader Lulzim Basha said Albanians are being forced to leave the country due to bad governance by the ruling Socialist-led majority. He urged people to stay and vote against the government instead.
“More than 20,000 families do not receive economic assistance, because they were found with chairs and tables at home, which were considered a luxury,” Basha said, condemning a government drive to remove people from state social assistance, while increasing power bills. “This exodus is condemning their bad governance,” Basha added.
Welfare Minister Erion Veliaj, who the Socialists are running for Tirana mayor, said most of those leaving the country came from municipalities that are run by the Democratic Party and accused the opposition of leaving behind a ruined country after eight years in power. The Democrats’ mandate ended in 2013.
Ambassador Hoffmann urged the parties not to turn this into a political conflict issue.
“If citizens see politics as a constant fight and debate, if everything is put in question, if every reform is prejudged, how can there be trust in politics,” he said. “This makes a mixture of mistrust and makes people want to leave the country. I hope that the political class will sit and cooperate to soften the phenomenon.”
Albania lost a third of its population to migration between 1991 and 2001, and the trend declined as the country improved, but the tail end of the economic crisis has led to renewed migration. It has since gone up and down.
About 10 percent of Albanians who migrated abroad since the early nineties had returned home in the 2009-2013 period.
That meant more than 133,000 people returned to Albania, marking the highest pace of return since the country started losing a third of its population to migration in the 1990s and early 2000s, according to study by the International Organization for Migration and the Albanian Institute of Statistics, INSTAT. Those returns came primarily from crisis-hit Greece and Italy.
However, data released by INSTAT in early 2015, showed about 15 percent of people who had returned had re-migrated, indicating mobility of Albanian workers is now an entrenched feature — and emigration is likely to continue to be part of the Albanian story for decades to come.
