Interior minister calls for curb of migration via Balkan route

Illegal migration via the Balkan route must be reduced, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told German news organization RND in remarks published early Thursday, reported dpa.

Faeser, who was speaking ahead of a conference in Berlin with representatives of countries from the West Balkans, said that European authorities had a joint responsibility to stop illegal migration "so that we can continue to help people who urgently need our support."

"We have taken in more than a million refugees from Ukraine in Germany since the beginning of the war," the minister pointed out.

At the same time, more people are coming to Europe via the Mediterranean and the Balkan route, Faeser added.

In order to curb migration via the Balkan route, a bundle of measures will be discussed at the meeting in Berlin on Thursday. These include aligning the visa policy of the Western Balkan states with EU standards, combating smuggling and ensuring effective border protection.

Procedures for returning people "who have no right to stay with us," must also be discussed, Faeser asserted.

Meanwhile Gerald Knaus, a migration researcher and co-founder of the think tank European Stability Initiative, said he considers attempts to prevent immigration to the EU via the Balkan route to be useless.

"Closing the Balkan route has never worked before," Knaus told RND.

"The pressure is currently not created by illegal, but by legal migration. Nine out of ten refugees come from Ukraine," he added.

Faeser invited representatives of the six Western Balkan countries - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia - to the conference. Delegates from the EU and from Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Austria, Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom will also join the discussions.