Belgium PM: Chances for Asylum 'Nonexistent'

His meeting with Macedonian PM Nikola Gruevski was delayed until late Monday evening after heavy snowfall at Skopje airport caused his plane to divert to Thessaloniki, Greece.

The information about Belgium's asylum policy that has spread across the northern part of the country [Macedonia] is wrong, Leterme said. “My country does not give political asylum to economic refugees and so there is no point travelling to Belgium to try and get it.”

Leterme told reporters that the number of asylum seekers has dropped in the last few days and announced close cooperation with Skopje to tackle the issue further.

PM Gruevski assured Leterme that his country was doing its utmost to inform its people and prevent them from leaving for Brussels to seek asylum.

“We informed Leterme about the concrete measures that we have taken, which are already producing results,” Gruevski said.

The two officials also talked about the forthcoming Belgian EU presidency in the second half of this year and Macedonia’s aspirations to join the EU.

Leterme came along with Belgian State Secretary for Immigration Melchior Wathele. According to the schedule of the Belgian officials, the PM is to head to Croatia on Tuesday while Wathele will stay in Macedonia to visit some of the villages in the regions that are considered to be hot spots for this sort of emigration.