Jump in Asylum Requests From Serbia in 2013

Serbian media sources reported on Wednesday that 22,500 Serbian citizens applied for asylum in EU countries in 2013 a 17-per-cent increase on the figure for 2012.

Ivan Gerginov, Serbia’s assistant commissioner for refugees and migration, said the hike would not affect Serbia’s visa-free regime with the EU Schengen area.

Implemented in December 2009, the system allows citizens of Serbia, Macedonia, and Montenegro to travel into the EU’s passport-free without visas.

“The regime is not threatened at this time and the government has established a commission for the preservation of the visa-free regime, to monitor it,” Gerginov said.

Most of the asylum seekers in question were ethnic minority Albanians and Roma, Gerginov noted.

According to him, the most common reasons for those seeking asylum were poor financial conditions in Serbia and better welfare benefits available in EU countries.

Despite the relatively high the number of applications in recent years, few have been accepted and approved.

Between 2009 and 2011, Germany, Sweden, and Luxembourg received 19,650 asylum claims from Serbian citizens. But they granted only 15 of them.

This is not the first time that a wave of asylum seekers fro Serbia has received attention. According to a UNHCR report, in 2010, Serbia was the top country of origin for asylum seekers, beating war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to a report cited by B92, the number of requests for asylum in the EU last year from Western Balkan countries exceeded the number from Syria.

In 2012, more Serbian nationals applied...