Balkan Asylum Seekers 'Manipulated'

Wathelet repeated that all asylum applicants from Macedonia and Serbia will be rejected and said that the situation is gradually getting back to normal after the recent swarm of asylum seekers raised the concern of the Belgian authorities.

"There are two basic reasons for this phenomenon. The first is false information in the country of origin, where people have been told [reportedly by various travel agencies] they will receive accommodation and money in Belgium, which is a lie,” Wathelet told the Macedonian language program of Deutsche Welle.

The second reason, he noted, was that immigrants who have legal residency in Belgium give their relatives back home false hope that they too can acquire residency.

“These people spend money on this. These immigrants are victims because they have been manipulated, but they will be sent home," the official said.

Yesterday, the European Commission sent a strict warning to Skopje and Belgrade and to residents of the two states not to abuse the rights gained by the recent visa liberalisation, which kicked in at the end of last year.

They urged the authorities to conduct campaigns in order to better inform their citizens about the rights and restrictions of the new visa-free travel agreement.

Since visa-free travel to the EU came into force for Serbia and Macedonia, some 400 Macedonian citizens and roughly the same number of Serbians have applied for asylum in Belgium. This is double the number of total applications filed during all of 2009, the authorities in Belgium have reported.

Skopje and Belgrade have said that they will do all they can to prevent this trend, which primarily concerns people from several rural impoverished areas in both countries.