Belgium PM to Take On Balkans Asylum Issue

Accompanied by Belgian State Secretary for Immigration Melchior Wathelet, Leterme is to meet Macedonian PM Nikola Gruevski upon his arrival, after which they are expected to visit the regions from which many of the immigrants originate.

Leterme's main message is expected to be that the visa liberalisation agreement must not be abused.

On Tuesday Wathelet is set to travel to the town of Presevo in neighboring Serbia, another hot spot for asylum seekers, to inform the local population that they cannot obtain political asylum in his country.

Leterme met his Serbian counterpart, Mirko Cvetkovic, in Brussels on Friday. They both agreed that Serbia is not a country which violates human rights and therefore requests for political asylum filed by people from South Serbia cannot be resolved positively.

After the lifting of the Schengen visa wall for Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro at the end of last year, Brussels has reported that the number of Macedonian and Serbian asylum seekers at its doorstep has soared.

Last week, Switzerland and Sweden said that they too are facing dramatically higher numbers of asylum seekers from the two countries.

Belgrade and Skopje have explained that those who are filing the applications are mainly people from several impoverished regions who travel in organised groups in search of a better life. Officials say they are investigating who is helping convince these people that after arriving in Brussels they will easily obtain asylum status and receive accommodation, and who is helping to facilitate their travel.

Brussels announced last week that it would start deporting the asylum seekers beginning Wednesday. Belgium states that it makes no sense for the citizens whose countries stand at the doorsteps of EU to be granted asylum.

“They must know that they are always welcome in Belgium as tourists, for some time, but they will never get financial help from Belgian authorities,” Wathelet said.

The Belgian embassy in Serbia announced that 58 people from Serbia reportedly sought asylum in the country in January, and 330 filed applications in February. Similar numbers of Macedonian residents filing applications were registered during the same period.

"There were some cases where people visited their relatives in the EU for two or three weeks and then returned to Serbia, which is normal. However, there are also many cases in which individuals invested a lot of money to take the trip, with the hope of getting asylum status in an EU country, and now they will have to return after three months," Riza Halimi, the only ethnic Albanian MP in Serbia's parliament, said last week.

He estimated that up to 10.000 people from south Serbia alone might have tried to seek asylum in the EU.

Serbian daily Blic learned from the Serbian Interior Ministry that three agencies registered in Macedonia and operating in South Serbia as well - "Bashkim Tours", "Libertas Travel” and “Rasim Tourist Travel” - have allegedly been organising travel for the asylum seekers. The deals have reportedly been made via personal contacts and cell phones so it is difficult for police to track down information.

Macedonian authorities last week closed the Skopje based travel agencies “Sky Vim-AB” and “Jashko Jashar” after they were found to be operating illegally.

Serbian and Macedonian police have announced that they will initiate criminal proceedings against the owners of such tourist and travel agencies if there is enough evidence to link them to the organised transport. Last week Macedonian media cited local government sources saying local police officials might be involved as well.