Macedonia Steps Up Penalties for Visa Abusers

In an effort to ward off a possible temporary reinstatement of visas for Macedonians and Serbians over the asylum issue, Skopje has proposed changes to the country's penal code.

The proposed changes include prison sentences of four to eight years for those who organise shelter or transport individuals to the EU and Schengen member countries for personal gain.

Fines of up to 500,000 euros are envisaged for the travel and tourist companies who participate in these activities.

The Ministry of Justice, which drafted the changes, hopes that they will pass the government and parliament procedure and be adopted soon.

Macedonian citizens gained the ability to travel without visas to the Schengen countries in late 2009, together with the citizens of Serbia and Montenegro. The move allowed people from the region to stay as tourists in the Schengen zone, which includes most of the EU states, for up to three months.

In the months that followed the visa-free agreement's entry into force, various local tourist and travel companies organised tours of asylum seekers from the country’s impoverished regions to EU countries; several were later fined for this practice.

Austria, Germany, France were the first countries to sound the alarm last year after increasing numbers of Macedonians and Serbians applied for asylum, and the EU then made clear that economic hardship in a person's home country is not a valid reason to grant asylum.

Brussels, which last year urged the Balkan countries to take action on the issue, is expected to reach a decision this June on whether it will partially or temporarily reinstate visas for Macedonia and Serbia.

Last week, Macedonian Justice Minister Mihajlo Manevski and Police Minister Gordana Jankulovska attended a session of the national action team tasked at stopping the flow of immigrants.

Among other things, they agreed to more in-depth checks of suspicious tourist and travel agencies and increased controls at border crossings in order to prevent potential migrants from leaving the country.