Have any lessons been learned to cope with a new wave of migration through the Western Balkans?

In 2022, the number of refugees and migrants on the move through the Western Balkans was at its highest level since 2015. This route has remained the second most active into Europe so far in 2023. This is raising concerns in the Western Balkans, but also in the EU and the United Kingdom, where there are fears of a resurgence of the types of challenges that were faced by some countries in 2015 and 2016 when trying to cope with millions of people on the move. Since then, several countries have built physical barriers, sought to improve relations with third countries and endeavoured to improve multilateral cooperation, not least through the EU. As witnessed on the Italian island of Lampedusa, that system is now facing a stress test.

According to preliminary data from Frontex, the EU border agency, 330 000 irregular migrants entered the bloc in 2022, the biggest irregular inflow since 2016.¹ Of these, 145 600 migrants (45%) used the Western Balkan route. In the Western Balkans, the number of irregular migrants increased by 136% compared to 2021.² Most of those on the move came from or via the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Between January and August 2023, the Western Balkans remained the second most active route, albeit with a 19% decline compared to the same period of last year, in part due to Serbia ending a visa exemption for Burundi, Tunisia, India and Guinea-Bissau.³ This policy change by Serbia came after pressure from the EU, which expressed concern that the system was being exploited by migrants who were using the country as an illicit springboard to the bloc.

Migrants seen next to abandoned train carriages near Thessaloniki, Greece, on their way to follow the Western Balkan route towards North Macedonia, October 2022.

Photo: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The top three nationalities travelling through the Western Balkan route are Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey.⁴ The numbers are expected to remain high as a result of the upsurge in conflict between Israel and Hamas, continued repression in Afghanistan, war and instability in Libya and Sudan as well as economic hardships in several African countries. Frontex had in August anticipated a moderate decrease for 2023 as a whole,⁵ but that was before Hamas’s attack on Israel, which has now launched a ground invasion of Gaza. There are also risks of substantial repercussions beyond this immediate conflict theatre.

At the same time, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has triggered the largest refugee crisis within Europe since World War II. While the largest proportion of refugees have moved to neighbouring countries and Western Europe, tens of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians have found refuge in the Western Balkans. Unlike the migrants from the MENA region, who predominantly rely on people smuggling networks to arrange illegal border crossings, the Ukrainian refugees in the Balkan countries during 2022 generally gained legal entry.

Although the war in Ukraine has little to do with the significant increase in irregular migration, there is an indirect connection in so far as law enforcement and humanitarian resources – for example in Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania – were overwhelmingly concentrated on dealing with the outflow of refugees from Ukraine in early 2022. This made it easier for migrants to cross borders illegally in places that were less well guarded as a result of the shift in law enforcement personnel, for example on the border between Romania and Hungary, the border between Serbia and Hungary, and the border between Bulgaria and Turkey.⁶ Furthermore, the war has created a pool of vulnerable Ukrainians who are being recruited by criminal networks to carry out low level tasks such as driving migrants.⁷ There are also allegations that Ukrainian criminal networks have been involved in smuggling men of conscription age prevented from leaving Ukraine under the restrictions on movement.⁸

More diverse and violent criminal actors

Compared to seven years ago, new patterns are emerging in relation to the smuggling of migrants through the Western Balkans. Networks appear to have become more fluid and decentralized. The use of technology – particularly encrypted chat groups, mobile internet apps and GPS systems – has democratized the market and reduced the need for centralized and well-coordinated operations.⁹ It has also cut down the need for guides and made it easier to recruit and advertise migrant smuggling operations.¹⁰ Online money transfer apps are also being used to pay for smuggling services.¹¹ Furthermore, the use of encryption has made it harder for police to track and investigate smuggling networks, unlike in 2015 and 2016 when such groups could be intercepted by information from mobile phones.¹²

Migrants tend to move point-to-point with a ‘pay as you go’ type of system rather than the end-to-end package deals prevalent between 2015 and 2017. Smugglers tend to rely on trusted contacts – often compatriots – in neighbouring nations to facilitate illegal border crossings.¹³ What remains the same is that corruption can help open gates or cause border guards to look the other way.¹⁴

The profile of smugglers seems to have changed. Whereas in 2015 and 2016 smugglers were predominantly nationals of the country where they operated, the market seems to have become more fluid and international. It is not unusual for citizens of one South East European country to be involved, for example as a driver, in smuggling migrants in another country of the region. Drivers are even recruited via social media.¹⁵ In the past few years, there has been a noticeable increase in drivers in Bulgaria from Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.¹⁶ Migrants or former migrants, particularly from Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Africa or Kurdish regions, are also active in the smuggling business including as recruiters in asylum centres, transporters, landlords for accommodating migrants and organizers of logistics. They are particularly present at key hubs where migrants seek to cross borders illegally.¹⁷ All too often, in many countries of the region, vehicle chases or reckless driving result in road accidents that lead to the death of migrants, the driver and/or other motorists.¹⁸

Since the cost and level of sophistication needed to enter the smuggling market seems to be quite low, but the rewards potentially high, there appears to be considerable competition around key hubs. This competition is often violent. In the past year, there have been several violent incidents on the border between Serbia and Hungary, including the firing of automatic weapons.¹⁹ In some cases, violence is directed against the police and border guards. In Hungary, 12 police officers and 29 national guard officers were reportedly wounded in 2022,²⁰ while in Bulgaria four police officers were killed in 2022 and many others hurt in violent clashes with migrant smugglers.²¹ Elsewhere, there have reportedly been violent clashes between rival smuggling groups, for example incidents reported in Serbia, Kosovo and North Macedonia of clashes between Kurdish and North African (Moroccan and Algerian) groups.²² In other cases, the violence is carried out by smugglers against the migrants, for example when they attempt to cross a fence (such as the one separating Serbia and Hungary) without paying for the service. Notably, most violence is carried out at key exit points, as is the case in Serbia, and near informal migrants’ camps.²³

Only multilateral responses can address this transborder problem

Since the massive wave of refugees and migrants in 2015, there has been a tendency for countries in South Eastern Europe to build walls and fences.

For its part, the EU has tried to strengthen its outer perimeter, particularly through the deployment of Frontex. This has also included the signing of new agreements on operational cooperation in border management with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, which among others, allows for deployment of Frontex Standing Corps officers.²⁴ Furthermore, rather than just ‘closing the Balkan route’ and leaving these countries to fend for themselves – which was very much the case in 2016 – there is a greater sense of solidarity, not to mention self-interest, for EU countries to work more closely with their neighbours in the Western Balkans to manage and reduce the flow of refugees and migrants.

Building on its New Pact on Migration and Asylum, which was proposed in September 2020, the European Union adopted an Action Plan for Migration on the Western Balkans in December 2022. It includes 20 operational measures clustered under five key areas: strengthening border management along trafficking routes; ensuring swift asylum procedures and reception capacity; fighting migrant smuggling; enhancing readmission cooperation and returns; and achieving the alignment of visa policy.²⁵ Adoption of these measures should not only help the EU and the six Western Balkan nations to address migration more effectively, but it could also speed up the EU accession process in the area of migration and border management.

The challenge will be to seek mutual benefits, for example through more effective sharing of information, rather than playing a blame game (as has been witnessed between Austria and Romania, or in relation to Hungary’s controversial decision to release more than 700 foreign people smugglers from prison in June 2023) or putting pressure on South East European countries to carry out returns without the necessary infrastructure. Practical measures could include joint operations, standardization of methodology for collecting and sharing information on irregular migration and enhancing procedures to identify and register migrants at borders. It would also make sense for Western Balkan nations to join Eurodac (the European system for the comparison of fingerprints of asylum applicants).

Ultimately, the push factors that cause so many desperate migrants to risk their lives to seek refuge and brighter opportunities requires an international rather than a purely European response. Countries in the EU, the European Free Trade Association, the United Kingdom and the Western Balkans should jointly push for a more coordinated global response to the largescale flows of people on the move, including through implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. Otherwise, there will continue to be disproportionate pressures on certain countries – such as Greece and Italy – a lack of solidarity and cooperation, and a rise in populism caused in part by disillusionment with the inability of governments to cope with migration.

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