EU report: 8,000 Albanians sought asylum in ten months

TIRANA, Oct. 8 – A recent European Union report says that about 8,000 Albanians asked for asylum in western European countries this year alone.
The number was second only to such requests from Serbia.
Since 2010, Albania and the rest of the Western Balkan states, except Kosovo, enjoy a visa-free regime with most EU member states, as well as Switzerland and Norway.
EU countries say they have been confronted with a surge of the asylum requests despite their efforts to speed up the process of handing out denials.
Brussels has threatened it may reinstate the visa regime and the European Parliament voted earlier this year entitling separate countries to reinstate the visa regime for separate countries should there be a surge in asylum claims.
Most claims in the region come from Roma communities and from some of the poorest ethnic Albanian areas in the former Yugoslavia, data shows.