GERMANY today slammed Serbia’s “unacceptable” visa policy as contributing to a migrant surge into the European Union and called for the bloc to take coordinated action at crunch talks this week. 

Berlin is opposed to Belgrade’s visa-free travel regime for several countries whose citizens use Serbia as a springboard to enter the EU. 

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that she and her EU counterparts would discuss “the situation in Serbia and a bolstered deployment of (the bloc’s border agency) Frontex” at the meeting on Friday. 

“To put it clearly: Serbia’s visa practice is unacceptable and is leading to (increased) movements on the Balkan route,” she told reporters in Berlin. 

’Stopping illegal entries’ 

Serbia, a candidate for eventual EU membership, lies on the so-called Balkan route used by migrants heading towards Western Europe as they flee war and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

Although the route is nowhere as busy as it was during Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015, tens of thousands still pass through the region annually. 

The European Commission’s 2022 report on migration and asylum released this month found an “increasing number of people” were arriving by air to Serbia due to its “visa-free regimes”.

It said it was “crucial” that Western Balkan partners “align their visa policies” with the EU to decrease pressure on the route.

In preparation for Friday’s talks, Faeser said European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson called a meeting about developments on the Balkan route for Thursday with representatives from Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece and Slovakia. 

Faeser said that since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February, Germany had taken in more than one million people seeking protection from “Putin’s tanks and missiles”. 

She said she was “worried” by the combined effect in the EU of an influx of people fleeing the war in Ukraine as well as “significantly more people” entering the bloc via the Mediterranean and the Balkan route. 

As a result and in coordination with Vienna, Berlin will extend border controls at the Austrian frontier for another six months from November “to prevent illegal entries”, Faeser said. 

“I want to stress again: we share responsibility for stopping illegal entries so that we can continue to help the people who urgently need our support in this crisis,” she said. 

In a sign of rising tensions over the new arrivals, firefighters prevented an attack on a refugee shelter for 147 refugees from Ukraine in the town of Apolda yesterday, local media reported. – AFP, October 11, 2022.