Benefits of Visa-Free Travel Distant for Macedonians

Data from the Macedonian police for the first nine months of this year show a 12 per cent increase in Macedonians crossing the country's border compared to the same period last year.

This looks like a temperate increase compared to Eurostat statistics which indicate that the number of asylum seekers from Macedonia applying in EU countries has sky rocketed over the same period, from several hundred in 2009 to over 4,300 so far this year, despite warnings that Macedonian citizens are very unlikely to be granted asylum in the EU.

At a celebration event organised by the government on Sunday in Skopje, citizens displayed their photos from their tourist stays across Europe.

But unlike the idyllic holidays pictured in the photos, many Macedonians told Balkan Insight that a one-day shopping trip to neighbouring Greece is the most they can afford with an average monthly salary of just over 300 euros.

“The lack of money is the real problem. There are few people who can spend their earnings on fancy holidays in Paris or Rome,” 33-year-old Ivica Damjanovski says.

“We are no longer required to wait in long lines before the embassies for visas, and that is giving me a sense of greater freedom,” Blagoja Zdruzevski told Balkan Insight. However, Zdruzevski, who is 54 years old and an employee in the public administration, admits he has only been out of the country once- to visit his son studying in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Elena Suceska, a 39-year-old housewife, told Balkan Insight: “I traveled twice this year on a shopping trip to Thessaloniki. For a holiday abroad I will have to think twice.”

Many of the Macedonians who are leaving the country are mired in deep poverty and cross the border to seek asylum and a better life in EU member states.

The numbers of asylum seekers first rose in early 2010, a few weeks after visa liberalisation agreements for Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro came into force. Belgium, Sweden, Austria and Germany raised the alarm after registering hundreds of asylum seekers from Macedonia and Serbia.

At the time, Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme visited Belgrade and Skopje to push his counterparts into action, but the efforts made by EU countries and Macedonia's government seem to have had little effect.

After a temporary decrease in the number of asylum seekers over the summer months, the figure rose once again this autumn, resulting in threats from the EU that the visa liberalisation agreement could be withdrawn if the situation is not adequately addressed.