Balkan route
The Balkan route is a summary of routes between the Middle East and Europe via the Balkans , where parts of the EU's external border run. In particular, the term is used in connection with the refugee crisis in Europe since 2015 and with drug smuggling . In the first ten months of 2015, according to the EU Commission, almost 700,000 people traveled on the Balkan route from Greece to Central Europe. Transit states took successive measures to curb the flow of refugees. After an EU summit in early March 2016, Slovenia and other states announced measures that will make the Balkan route even more impermeable than before. Austria's Interior Minister Mikl-Leitner and Foreign Minister Kurz emphasized that this should stay that way.
The procedure of the Balkan states is covered by EU resolutions, which the German federal government has also approved.
At the beginning of February 2017, a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior said that illegal migration via the Western Balkans had been significantly reduced, but was continuing.
In July 2019, the Balkan route received greater media attention again due to reports about the inhumane conditions in the Vučjak refugee camp near the Bosnian town of Bihać .
West and East Balkans route
There are two routes:
- the Western Balkans route across the Inner Balkans, from Greece via North Macedonia and Serbia
- the Eastern Balkan route from the Bosporus ( Turkey ) via Bulgaria and Romania up the Danube to Serbia
The Balkan route used to lead from Serbia via Hungary to Austria. Since Hungary sealed off its 151 km long border with Serbia ( Hungarian border fence ), the variant through the Sava Corridor Croatia - Slovenia to Austria (or Italy ) has gained in importance. Bosnia-Herzegovina has a total of 1,538 kilometers long external border with its three neighboring states: 932 kilometers with Croatia, which surrounds Bosnia-Herzegovina in an arc to the north and west, 357 kilometers with Serbia in the east and 249 kilometers with Montenegro in the southeast. Migrants come to Bosnia-Herzegovina from Montenegro or Serbia and try to get to Croatia from there. Several thousand migrants camp in the border area with Croatia under poor conditions (as of July 2018).
There are numerous smaller secondary routes and cross-connections to the two routes as well as alternatives depending on the source and destination area, e.g. B. the Eastern Balkans route leads via Moldova to Russia.
An English expression is Western / Eastern Balkans route , French la route des Balkans , Italian cammino tra i Balcani .
Drug smuggling
Afghanistan is considered a major raw opium growing area. The opium is smuggled through Iran into Turkey , where it is processed into heroin . This is smuggled into Europe via one of the Balkan routes.
Alternative smuggling routes run further north across the Black Sea to Bulgaria or Ukraine .
Migration movement of the 2010s
Many of the migrants of the refugee crisis in Europe who take a Balkan route come from Syria , Iraq , and further southern Central Asia, especially Afghanistan and Pakistan , but also - after the Mediterranean routes have become more difficult or expensive - also from North African countries, from Eritrea and from Ethiopia . These migrants do not want to settle in one of the economically weak Balkan countries, but aim to stay in Central Europe , the British Isles or Northern Europe . In addition, the relatively underdeveloped Balkan countries of North Macedonia , Albania , Montenegro and Kosovo were themselves countries of origin for a while.
At the beginning of the refugee crisis in 2011, the Western Balkans route initially had little significance; The main route was the Eastern Balkans route. For 2012 and 2013, Frontex recorded 12,000 passages on the Eastern Balkan route and 4,000 on the Western Balkans route, an enormous increase compared to previous years, but far less than in 2015. However, the situation was perceived as so critical that in November 2013 the first Western Balkans Conference ("Frontex Western Balkans Conference ") took place. After the Greek border fence with Turkey in 2012, the Bulgarian one with Turkey was built in 2014 , thus closing the Eastern Balkan route. Migration shifted from Turkey to routes across the coastal Greek Aegean islands . This shift was in the interests of Bulgaria and Romania as well as Turkey, which would not have tolerated mass movements across the Bosporus. This route is in the European Frontex jargon Eastern Mediterranean Route (Eastern Mediterranean route). Some of the islands of Greece (including Lesbos , Samos , Chios and Kos ) are within sight of the Turkish coast ; Refugees can reach them (and thus EU territory) on simple boats. Winds, ocean currents and waves can be dangerous to them; sometimes boats capsize and people drown. Greece allowed the refugees to travel to the mainland in 2015; there most of them moved to one of the border crossings on the Greek-North Macedonian border (e.g. Idomeni ) and some to the Greek-Albanian border. After the war in Syria and persistent droughts , but also a lack of money at the UNHCR , at the beginning of summer 2015 the refugee camps in Lebanon , Jordan and Turkey were in sometimes catastrophic humanitarian conditions, and the Levant began to move. In the hot summer of 2015 , hiking conditions were also favorable in Europe.
 EU state |
EU external border [in km] |
EU neighboring country | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,819 | ||||||||
|
1,198 | 25th | 25th |
|
||||
| 932 | 932 |
|
||||||
| 241 | 1,186 |
|
||||||
|
151 | 151 | ||||||
|
476 | 476 | ||||||
|
466 | 318 | ||||||
| 148 | 394 |
|
||||||
|
528 | 246 | ||||||
| 282 | 282 |
|
||||||
|
As of July 1, 2013.
∗The Schengen external border is slightly different, Slovenia to Croatia 670 km, Hungary to Croatia 329 km; a total of 199 km shorter.
|
||||||||
In 2015, Greece did not register the migrants either on the Greek islands or during or after their transport to the mainland, thus violating the Schengen Agreement . At the Greek-North Macedonian border , many migrants tried to get to North Macedonia. North Macedonia and Serbia are not EU members; the EU's external border therefore lies with Hungary ( admitted to the EU in 2004 ) and Croatia (admitted to the EU on January 1, 2014). Therefore, the Schengen external border is still between Croatia and Slovenia . Until Hungary ( Orbán government ) built the border fence with Serbia and closed its borders to refugees at the end of September 2015, many of the refugees traveled via Hungary and Austria .
August 2015: "March of Hope"
This route only became publicly known at the end of August 2015, when refugees who were “stuck” in Hungary were allowed to travel to Germany (“March of Hope”). At the end of August, due to misleading statements by the German Migration Office BAMF and Chancellor Merkel , the opinion or hope spread among migrants that Germany would in principle in future grant Syrian refugees asylum without checking and considering the Schengen / Dublin procedure (“new welcome culture ”). The situation worsened again instead of subsiding at the end of the summer, as hoped. The destination country for the majority of refugees is Germany ; Sweden , which used to be a popular destination, changed its refugee policy radically in autumn 2015 .
In the transit countries, the refugees often traveled by bus, taxi or train; state borders were crossed on foot. An escape via the Balkan route used to take weeks, when some transit countries transported the refugees to the next border (“passed on”) it was much faster.
Measures against the Balkan route
Border fences were built at other border sections: At the Austrian border crossing at Spielfeld , from Slovenia to Croatia and on the border between Greece and North Macedonia .
On November 19, 2015, it became known that Serbia and North Macedonia would only allow refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to enter, as was the EU country Slovenia. Two days earlier, officials from the interior ministries of Slovenia, Serbia, North Macedonia and Greece had agreed in Brdo pri Kranju to measures to slow down, manage and control the flow of migrants, as well as a uniform system for identifying those passing through and a joint database. North Macedonia began building a border fence on its border with Greece. On February 8, 2016, the construction of a second border fence began.
The eastern EU countries of the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia ( Visegrad countries ) decided on February 15, 2016 to also seal off the Balkan route more strongly against refugees. You promised North Macedonia and Bulgaria practical support with border security.
Austria introduced an upper limit for asylum applications as a guideline in January 2016, and for this purpose named an 80-person quota for Spielfeld on February 22nd, and named a daily quota of 3,200 refugees for transit to Germany. On February 26, 2016, Slovenia announced that it would only allow 580 refugees into the country every day. It should again be possible to control every refugee in accordance with the Schengen / Dublin rules. This means there is a “backlog” in Greece. The Austrian Interior Minister Mikl-Leitner spoke of a "desired chain reaction of reason",
Deputy Interior Minister Ioannis Mouzalas, who is responsible for migration issues , said on February 28, 2016 that “22,000 refugees and migrants” are in Greece. At the Idomeni border crossing , 6,500 of them were hoping to be able to enter North Macedonia.
Greece restricted the transport of refugees from Greek islands to the mainland in order to slow this part of the flow of refugees. Shortly after the conference in North Macedonia, there were also tear gas deployments against the congested migrants who did not fall under the new sharper passage profile (especially Afghans) and who began to tear down the border fence.
At the beginning of March 2016, the Western Balkans route for refugees was completely closed through coordinated resolutions by North Macedonia , Serbia , Croatia , Hungary and Slovenia : These countries only want to allow people with valid passports and visas into the country. The Austrian Minister of the Interior also declared that it was finally over with Austria functioning as a “waiting room” for other countries.
A readmission agreement has been in force between Greece and Turkey since April 2002 , on the basis of which Greece could send illegally travelers back to Turkey. On December 16, 2013, the EU and Turkey signed a readmission agreement; it came into force on October 1, 2014. However, Turkey has so far refused to take back refugees and implement the existing agreement. For example, of nearly 9,700 withdrawal requests from Greece in 2014, Turkey fulfilled six.
Turkey denies (as of February 22, 2016) a point in agreements between the EU, NATO and Turkey, according to which boat refugees rescued from distress by NATO ships are to be returned to Turkey.
In September 2016, a meeting of heads of government and ministers from ten countries as well as EU Council President Donald Tusk and EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos took place in Vienna , at which the refugee problem was discussed. It became known that since February 50,000 asylum seekers had illegally reached Germany via the Balkan route. Around 18,000 refugees came to Austria from March to September 2016. In Bulgaria, according to the authorities, around 15,000 migrants came into the country between January and the beginning of October 2016.
The Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior reported in August 2017 that 1461 refugees who had entered illegally had been apprehended since the beginning of the year, 80 percent fewer than in the same period of the previous year. The number of recognized and tolerated refugees also fell drastically. This is seen as a consequence of the massive expansion of the border fence with Turkey , which the Borissov II government , which has been in office since May, has also pushed forwards, as well as the support of the Bulgarian border police by Frontex and the Turkish colleagues.
Romanian media reported in the summer of 2017 that the number of refugees apprehended in the country had tripled compared to 2016, but in some cases people also came from Turkey to Romania by boat across the Black Sea. 129 people were picked up during such transports between the beginning and the middle of August and brought to Romania.
One of the masterminds of the EU-Turkey Agreement , Gerald Knaus, complained in March 2018 that the route's closure was an "illusion". The number of refugees arriving on the Greek islands in the two years following the conclusion of the agreement roughly corresponds to the number of people seeking protection who entered Germany from Greece via the Balkan route in the same period.
See also
- Western Balkans Conference
- European Neighborhood Policy , Union for the Mediterranean and Eastern Partnership
Web links
- FAZ.net September 16, 2015: Refugee route Croatia (with overview map)
- Traveling exhibition documenting the refugee situation from 2015-2017 " yallah !? over the Balkan route "
- UNHCR data sheet . Data from 2015 and current data of the UNHCR for Immigration to Europe .
- http://frontex.europa.eu:/ Main migratory routes into the EU
- Frontex report 2015 (PDF)
- Frontex : Western Balkans Annual Risk Analysis 2015 (Section 4.1: Risk of large and sustained secondary movements from Turkey through the Western Balkans (PDF, 10 pages))
Individual evidence
- ↑ ec.europa.eu: PDF (graphic on p. 1) , December 15, 2015
- ↑ a b FAZ.net March 8, 2016: Slovenia no longer lets refugees through
- ↑ a b FAZ.net March 10, 2016: Balkan route remains closed
- ↑ FAZ.net March 13, 2016: Austria wants to close borders along the Mediterranean route
- ↑ a b FAZ.net / Nikolaus Busse March 9, 2016: The Balkans are acting
- ↑ FAZ.net February 2, 2017: Europol: Balkan route is not closed
- ↑ Dramatic situation in refugee camp in Bosnia. ORF.at, July 17, 2019, accessed on July 23, 2019 .
- ^ Clemens Verenkotte: Bosnia-Herzegovina - refugee camp on a former garbage dump. Deutschlandfunk, July 22, 2019, accessed on July 23, 2019 (German).
- ↑ zeit.de July 24, 2018: In the dead end of the Balkan route
- ↑ trade of opiates in drogenmachtweltschmerz.de
- ↑ Frontex , Migratory routes map , January 26, 2016
- ↑ a b c In the swamp of Bulgaria. Summer of Migrations - Part 1. ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Moving Europe, December 2015 (accessed on March 1, 2016).
- ^ Western Balkan route: Trends prior to 2015. Frontex: Trends and Routes , accessed March 1, 2015.
- ↑ zeit.de February 4, 2016: Greece announces the completion of hotspots
- ^ Daniel Lingenhöhl: How the Syrian Civil War is related to climate change. On: Spektrum.de , March 2, 2015.
- ↑ tagesschau.de August 31, 2015: Exit permitted - trains overcrowded
- ↑ [1] tagesschau.de
- ↑ Between garbage and mattresses . zeit.de. 5th September 2015.
- ↑ The Refugee March of Hope. On the motorway to Vienna. Tagesspiegel.de, September 4th, 2015-
- ↑ Dublin procedure suspended: Syria refugees are allowed to stay in Germany. spiegel.de, August 25, 2015.
- ↑ Juncker urges EU asylum rules. FAZ.net, August 31, 2015.
- ↑ Refugees on the Balkan route at spiegel.tv
- ↑ spiegel.de: Balkan route: Serbia and Macedonia no longer let every refugee through
- ↑ washingtonpost.com: Croatia refuses people rejected by Slovenia
- ↑ FAZ.net November 19, 2015: Balkan states reject many refugees
- ↑ FAZ.net November 22, 2015: Balkan chain reaction
- ↑ Refugee crisis: Macedonia is planning a fence on the border with Greece spiegel.de, November 16, 2015
- ↑ rp-online.de
- ↑ tagesschau.de February 12, 2016: This is not a temporary measure
- ↑ www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de : Refugee policy in Europe: Eastern EU states call for the Balkan route to be sealed off. Retrieved February 16, 2016 .
- ↑ Doskozil: Daily limit only applies to the playing field. orf.at, February 23, 2016.
- ↑ EU Commission reiterates criticism of Austria's upper limit. In: Salzburger Nachrichten online, February 23, 2016.
- ↑ Slovenia introduces upper limit for refugees einspiegel.de February 26, 2016:
- ↑ a b sueddeutsche.de: Balkan states close down - more than 20,000 refugees are stuck .
- ↑ Austria and the Balkan countries want a "chain reaction of reason". In: Die Presse online, February 24, 2016.
- ↑ a b FAZ.net February 28, 2016: Tens of thousands of refugees stranded in Greece
- ↑ Border with Greece: Macedonia's police use tear gas against refugees. In: Spiegel online, February 29, 2016.
- ↑ a b FAZ.net / Michael Martens: What the agreement with Turkey is really about
- ↑ FAZ.net November 29, 2015: How to secure sea borders - and how not
- ↑ EU website with links to the agreement etc.
- ↑ Declaration by EU Commissioner Malmström on the entry into force of the readmission agreement between Turkey and the EU
- ↑ welt.de October 20, 2014: Turkey does not take back migrants from EU countries
- ↑ spiegel.de December 16, 2013
- ↑ Bayernkurier / Le Monde of October 20, 2015: Merkel as petitioner in Istanbul
- ↑ spiegel.de February 22, 2016
- ↑ FAZ.net September 23, 2016: The Balkan route should become even more hopeless
- ^ "Vienna Refugee Summit: Agreement with Afghanistan according to Kern in the foreseeable future - derstandard.at/jetzt/livebericht/2000044877288/europas-politiker-beraten" standard.at of 23 September 2016
- ↑ Stephan Ozsváth: "More staff on the Bulgarian border" Deutschlandfunk from October 6, 2016
- ↑ a b Smugglers use new smuggling routes
- ^ Mathias Fiedler: Summit against refugees . ( neue-deutschland.de [accessed on April 28, 2018]).
- ↑ Fear of a new refugee route across the Black Sea , welt.de, 22 August 2017.
- ^ "Riots in Moria refugee camp on Lesbos" Der Standard from March 15, 2018