SOURCE: RTS  25.03.2014.

How will the announced new Law on Asylum help to solve the problem of the increasing number of illegal migrants in Serbia? According to official data, the number of foreign nationals – migrants in our country was 77 in 2008, and by the end of 2013 that number rose up to 5, 065.

Unstable situation in some Asian and Middle Eastern countries suggests that this number will continue to increase. However, most of these people are not real asylum seekers, but the irregular migrants who do not intend to retain, but to continue their journey to the EU. Does Serbia have the institutional and organizational capacities to accept and to further distribute these people? How much resolving of this problem could be facilitated by opening of the Asylum Office, which has also been announced?

Another big problem for Serbia are our citizens or so-called false asylum seekers, who by seeking asylum in Western countries, abuse this possibility and make harm to the State. There are indications that this problem will be solved in the near future, after the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs files the initiative to declare Serbia and some other Balkan countries as “safe countries of origin”.

The guests are Vladimir Bozovic, State Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ivan Gerginov, assistant commissioner of the National Commission for Refugees and Migration and Rados Djurovic, executive director of the Asylum Protection Center.