READMISSION AND REINTEGRATION IN SERBIA Drenka Vukovic, PhD, Full-time Professor University of Belgrade Faculty of Political Sciences E-mail: drenka.vukovic@fpn.bg.ac.rs
Migration Trends Migrations of the Serbian population are characterized by an extreme dynamism of their external movements and increasingly important problems of accepting returnees from various European countries. Armed conflicts on the territory of ex-yugoslavia resulted in ethnical homogenization of population and their massive refuge. A certain number of people fled the war affected territories in search of temporary protection in the EU Member States, where they got statuses of refugees or asylum seekers. A significant number of young people opted to go overseas, in order to solve the basic existential problems. Political instability, economic troubles and lack of perspective intensified moving of brains when promises of better life, given by the leaders of democratic changes, failed. Extreme regional gaps and collapse of big industrial complexes resulted in an intensification of internal migrations and moving to big cities. The process of changes has been followed by massive poverty, especially profound in the population of refugees, internally displaced persons and members of certain ethnic groups.
Asylum Seekers from Serbia Regarding the total structure of forced migrants in the European countries, asylum seekers from Serbia took the third (in 2006), i.e. the fourth position (in 2007), behind asylum seekers from Iraq, Russia and Pakistan. During the war in the 1990s, refugees and asylum seekers from ex-yugoslavia presented the greatest pool of forced migrants in the EU. The greatest number of asylum seekers with the citizenship of Yugoslavia, were Albanians from Kosovo. In the general structure of legal migrants, the greatest number of them was from Serbia and Montenegro 132 986 (26,30%), Turkey (100 879-19,95%), Bosnia and Herzegovina (98 936-19,57%), Croatia (59 722-11,81%), Romania (18 018-3,56%), FYROM (16 356-3,23%), etc. (Werner T. Bauer, 2008: 10).
Asylum seekers in selected countries of the EU* (March 2008) Country of origin 2006 2007 Changes Iraq 19 375 38 286 +97,6% Russia 13 721 16 698 +21,7% Pakistan 6 284 13 193 +109,9% Serbia 13 662 12 668-7,3% Somalia 5 996 9 327 +55,6% Afghanistan 7 612 7 653 +0,5% Turkey 7 427 5 817-21,7% Iran 7 065 5 812-17,7% China 5 450 5 621 +3,1% Bangladesh 5 967 5 339-10,5% *(without Italy), Source: BAMF (2008)
Kretanja broja tražioca azila u Austriji (1999-2007) Trends in numbers of asylum seekers in Austria (1999-2007) 39354 30127 32359 24634 22461 20129 18284 13349 11921 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Policy of Returning Case of Serbia Stabilization of political climate and normalization of relations with neighboring countries actualized the topic of returning Serbian nationals from the European countries. In order to find the best solution, the Government signed readmission agreements regulating the conditions and instruments of returning people without a legal basis for staying abroad. Apart from certain bilateral agreements, based on which the process of returning had been previously regulated, in 2007 Serbia concluded an Agreement with the European Community on the readmission of persons residing without authorisation in the Member States.
Law on Readmission On December 7th 2007, based on Agreement signed in Brussels on Septemer 18th 2007, the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Law on confirming the Agreement between the Republic of Serbia and the European Community on the readmission of persons residing without authorisation and the Law on confirming the Agreement between the Republic of Serbia and the European Community on the facilitation of the issuance of visas ( Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 103/07). Signing of the agreements presented a precondition for further progress of the country in the process of accession to the EU as well as respecting the European standards in terms of protection the migrants rights.
Readmission of Own Citizens The Readmission agreement states that Serbia shall readmit, upon application by a Member State and without further formalities other than those provided for in this agreement, any person who does not, or who no longer, fulfils the conditions in force for entry to, presence in, or residence on, the territory of the Requesting Member State provided that it is proved, or may be validly assumed on the basis of prima facie evidence furnished, that such a person is a national of Serbia (article 2). The same applies to the Community s obligations.
Readmission of Third Country Nationals and Persons without Citizenship Serbia shall readmit, upon application by a Member State and without further formalities other than those provided for in this agreement, any third country national or person without citizenship who does not, or who no longer, fulfils the conditions in force for entry to, presence in, or residence on the territory of the Requesting Member State provided that it is proved, or may be validly assumed on the basis of prima facie evidence furnished, that such a person is a national of Serbia (article 3). The Agreement regulates the issues of readmission procedure, application, evidence on citizenship, deadlines, conditions for transfer, readmission by mistake (articles 6-12).
Lack of Data The whole readmission process has been followed by massive rejecting of asylum applications and forced, i.e. voluntary return to the country of origin. There are no official data of the Serbian state institutions (Ministries, competent services) on the number and structure of returnees, which makes creation of an adequate policy and implementation of the Reintegration Strategy, a difficult task. Having in mind that asylum seekers from Serbia present the majority of asylum seekers in certain countries of the EU, it can be supposed that after the enforcement of Readmission agreement in 2008, the greatest number of illegal migrants will be returned. According to the estimations of the Council of Europe in 2003, from 50 000 to 100 000 nationals of Serbia and Montenegro will be returned from Europe to Serbia (the largest number of them from Germany (30 000), the Netherlands (12 000), Belgium (3 000), Switzerland (3 000) and Luxembourg (3 000) (CoE, 2003).
(Forced) Returnees According to the data of the Group 484 (an NGO), since 2000, between 50 000 and 60 000 people living in 12 countries of the EU as well as Switzerland, have been forcedly returned to Serbia, based on bilateral readmission agreements. The data of the Office for Minority and Human Rights show that only in 2007 from 100 000 to 250 000 Serbian nationals were deported. It can be also estimated that these trends will continue in the next period. However, this is not a total number of returnees, because many of them opts for voluntary return, and competent services register only persons coming with a police escort. About 15 000 of the Serbian nationals was deported via the Belgrade Airport.
Voluntary Return from Germany (REAG and other programs) REAG Other programs FRY/Kosovo 1999 47 699 60 268 18 268 2000 76 953 75 049 56 549 2001 12 851 14 712 8 263 2002 11 691 12 242 6 146 2003 11 588 12 615 5 062 2004 9 993 10 823 3 166 2005 7 448 8 657 1 963 Source: BAMF (2007)
True stories When policemen appeared one morning, the whole family was surprised. They gave us 5 to 10 minutes to pack our things. They did not let us call my brother in order to tell him we had to leave. They put us into temporary arrest, where they kept us for three days. They handcuffed us my mother and father, and me too, both on the occassion of taking us to the temporary arrest and to the airport [...] It was the most terrible thing that has ever happened to my family we were decent and wanted only to have a better life in Switzerland, and not at the burden of their Government, but by our own work. We have never been stealing, and we did not deserve that kind of treatment (EHO, 2007: 24).
Voluntary return A certain part of Roma families came voluntary to Serbia. However, if one takes into consideration the circumstances in which they made the decision on returning, it is obvious that they were under strong pressure to return, they were threatened and promissed to have some kind of material help. One returnee from Germany now living in Bujanovac said: In May 2004, I obtained the last order, the so called Abschiebung, regarding my obligation to come and sign a statement on my voluntary return to the country of origin. I was given a promise that I will obtain the amount of 300 EURO and plane tickets. I was said I would be otherwise deported, and put into a jail. In order to avoid all this, because I did not want anyone to frighten my family, I signed the statement on my voluntary return (EHO, 2007: 25).
Unsolved issues The Draft Strategy for Reintegration of Returnees with readmission agreements was prepared by the Working Group of the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, within the MARRI program in 2006. The Strategy defines initial assumptions for solving the problems of returnees and gives some specific recommendations. It was written on the basis of international and national documents, regulating the issues of migration and asylum. A great number of returnees do not have any personal documents necessary for the regulation of their status in Serbia. Therefore, they have problems in terms of regulating the place of residence, due to the lack of a permanent address and living in improvised settlements.
Unsolved issues Researches show that the housing problems and unemployment are the biggest problems of returnees with readmission agreements. Joint for all returnees is that they now live in worse conditions than they had in the Western Europe. Continuation of education is a problem characteristic of their children. A certain number of them does not speak Serbian well or they do not know Serbian at all, so that they need extra courses, in order to understand the lectures in school. For successful reintegration of returnees, it is necessary to solve the problem of their access to health and social services. Giving humanitarian aid to returnees presents an integral part of measures with a view to solving their urgent problems.
Problems Unemployment, poverty, massive refuge and unsolved position of internally displaced persons, aggrevate the situation of returnees from the European countries. Unemployment, as poverty cause, is especially present in the population of refugees. Their unemployment rate in 2006 was 30%. The majority of refugees are long-term unemployed (83,5%). 70% of them did not have a job during 5 last years. Poverty rate in the population of refugees was reduced from 23,0% (in 2002) to 7,4% in 2007. According to data from Survey of Living Standard, poverty rate of internally displaced persons in 2007 was 14,5% (24,6% in 2002). The majority of Roma (60%) are without jobs; they are the most jeopardized ethnical group on the labor marker, and almost 50% of their total population is poor (AŽS, 2008).
Difficulties of Reintegration Relevant researches show that the majority of returnees are Roma, who are facing serious troubles in terms of reintegration. A certain number of returnees cannot speak Serbian, does not have any possessions or they left their possessions on Kosovo, where they had previously lived. A certain number of young Roma was well integrated in acception countries they manged to learn the language, went to schools there, expected to get jobs in the future,... Forced return presented a traumatic event and there were also reported cases of family separation; returning of sick people; handcuffing of returnees, etc. Returning of asylum seekers frequently meant violation of basic human rights and non-compliance with the recommendations of the Council of Europe and other bodies, regarding the principles of return. In 2006, Office for Readmission started its work at the airport "Nikola Tesla" in Belgrade, with the main task of providing legal and humanitarian assistance to returnees.