Macedonia Tackles Asylum Issue

This came after state inspectors on Thursday closed at least two questionable tourist agencies from Skopje which are suspected of luring emigrants and organising the transport to the EU.

The agencies “Sky Vim-AB” and “Jashko Jashar” were closed after inspections found that they were operating without a state license and without issuing fiscal receipts.

“The same will happen to other companies as well if irregularities are found in their work,” Macedonian Economy Minister Fatmir Besimi said.

However, he noted that closing illegal tourist agencies was not a guarantee in itself that the mass immigrations would stop.

The government committee has already ordered all Macedonian embassies to be more involved in preventing the abuse of the EU visa liberalisation agreement. At home the authorities announced an intensive information campaign to explain the rights and obligations related to the recent decision to scrap visas.

Unnamed government sources yesterday told local daily Vreme that the police force is probing the involvement of its own officers in the murky business.

Skopje raised the alarm after Belgium last week complained that it has been swarmed with asylum seekers from Macedonia and neighboring Serbia after the EU visa wall for these countries crumbled at the end of last year.

Brussels reported more than 400 asylum seekers from Macedonia and a similar number from Serbia had filed applications in the country. This doubles the total number of applications filed during all of 2009, the authorities in Belgium reported.

Meanwhile local A1 TV recently claimed that the tourist agency “Sky Vim-AB” belonged to the brother of a Macedonian legislator of Roma decent, Amdi Bajram. Bajram, who is part of the ruling majority, denounced the claims.

“Roma people should not be labeled as asylum seekers,” he argued, “We have witnessed that other people from other regions [of the country] are traveling [to Brussels].

Authorities have confirmed that the majority of asylum seekers come from impoverished regions in the country, mainly from the largely Roma populated Skopje suburb of Suto Orizari and from the northern municipality of Lipkovo, where ethnic Albanians form the majority.