Mass Migration: What Is Driving the Balkan Exodus?

Written on August 28th, 2015 in politics Comments Off

Published on Spiegel Online International, by Susanne Koelbl, Katrin Kuntz and Walter Mayr, Aug 26, 2015 (Photo Gallery – translated from the German by Christopher Sultan).

More than a third of all asylum-seekers arriving in Germany come from Albania, Kosovo and Serbia. Young, poor and disillusioned with their home countries, they are searching for a better future. But almost none of them will be allowed to stay … //

… Losing Confidence: … //
… Kosovo: A Country Like a Cage: … //
… Bloated Administration: … //
… We Have a Life: … //
… Albania: Caught Up in the Maelstrom of Emigration: … //
… Waiting for a Miracle: … //
… For My Parents’ Sake: … //
… Serbia: Escaping the Winter: … //

… Eight People in 12 Square Meters:

Halkilk Hasani is among those planning to make that journey soon. The 42-year-old spent nine years working for the garbage collection company, but he’s been out of work for a long time now. He lives together with his wife and six children in a 12 square meter (130 square foot) space in Makis 1, an impoverished container settlement at the edge of Belgrade that is surrounded by trash, stray dogs and children who play on the bare earth. At least he lives here for the time being. The city wants to evict the family because they left for Germany in 2011 and, by doing so, forfeited their right to live here.

Their 2011 trip took them by bus from Belgrade to Essen, where they applied for asylum. Around a year later, officials rejected their applications, but they stayed anyway, for another 15 months. “It was like living in America,” says Hasani. “We got an allowance of €900 a month as well as food and toiletries.” But then, they were cut off. The police showed up one morning at 3 a.m. and drove them to the airport. They were flown back home on an Adria Airways flight from Frankfurt on Feb. 25, 2014. Hasani dug out his ID, which the German federal police stamped with the word “deported”. It didn’t scare him. “I was told that it is only valid for two years,” he explains. He will be permitted to enter Germany again in February and he says his family plans to go again.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has some advice for the Germans. “Send our people home again and, more importantly, don’t give them any money.” There’s nothing Vucic could use less right now than trouble with the Germans. The EU lifted the visa requirement for Serbians traveling into the Schengen area in 2009 and it would be a major setback for the prime minister and his policies of opening Serbia, which include cautious overtures to Kosovo and painful economic reforms.

But it’s not just Serbian Roma who are heading to Germany. Belgrade has become a transit hub for tens of thousands of Syrians, Afghans and Iranians who are flowing into northern Europe via Turkey and Greece. The EU, their dream destination, is located just 200 kilometers from the Serbian capital and around 2,500 refugees arrive in Serbia every day. And
so many refugees are arriving in neighboring Macedonia
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/refugee-chaos-in-macedonia-dangerous-for-children-a-1048856.html
that the government declared a state of emergency last Friday.

To send a message, Serbia’s prime minister appeared on Aug. 19 in the park behind Belgrade’s central station, where thousands of refugees gather prior to the last stage in the trip to Hungary. Just one day earlier, the refugees had been camped out here between mountains of trash, shreds of clothing and excrement. On the morning of the 19th, though, in expectation of the visit, the city’s sanitation department cleaned up the park up so that Vucic, surrounded by cameras, could extend his “hospitality and cordiality” to the refugees. Most of those present, though, didn’t even know who was speaking, so the prime minister patted a boy on the head and disappeared again.

On Thursday, the Western Balkan Conference is set to begin. Ironically, the meeting will be held inside Vienna’s Hofburg Palace, the heart of the former Habsburg Empire. The countries touching the empire’s former external borders still haven’t found lasting peace even 100 years after it unraveled. For this year’s conference, organizers have come up with something special. In the stadium where the football team Wiener Austria usually plays, heads of current EU member states are to match up against the team “FC Future EU.”

That team includes Serbian Prime Minister Vucic, Kosovo Foreign Minister Hashim Thaci and Prime Minister Rama of Albania, men who wouldn’t even have shaken hands not too long ago. It would be a good opportunity for these men to bury old hostilities. And to try to find a way to stop the exodus.

(full text, map).

Links:

Moscow outraged as US restricts Russian upper house chair’s visa for intl conference in NYC, on Russia Today RT, Aug 27, 2015;

UNITED STATES: Hillary Clinton asked about Negative Income Tax and does not answer the question, on Basic Income Earth Network BIEN, Aug 27;

Communists call for 25-yr ban on changing street names, knocking down statues, on Russia Today RT, Aug 26, 2015;

Inequality: What Can Be Done? – a review, on Basic Income Earth Network BIEN, by Anthony B. Atkinson, Aug 26, 2015;

The hierarchy of retirement income needs, on FundWeb.co.uk, by Danby Bloch, Aug 26, 2015;

Australia: Small business tax changes come into effect, what it means for you, on smart company.au, by Terry Hayes, Aug 26, 2015;

Suisse: Menu copieux avant les élections fédérales, dans swissinfo.ch, le 25 août 2015;

US/Vermont: Poor Mothers don’t matter in welfare policy, on VT digger.org, by Felicia Kornbluh and Gwendolyn Mink, Aug 25, 205 … un mois environ avant les élections fédérales, la session d’automne qui débute le 7 septembre promet un copieux menu: réforme de l’asile, de la prévoyance vieillesse ou encore Stratégie énergétique. De quoi alimenter les joutes verbales et électorales …;

Devaluation Stunner: China Has Dumped $100 Billion In Treasurys In The Past Two Weeks, on Zero Hedge, by Tyler Durden, Aug 25, 2015: On August 11, China devalued its currency, and in the subsequent 3 days the onshore Yuan, the CNY, tumbled by some 4% against the dollar. Then, as if by magic, the CNY stabilized when China started intervening massively, only this time not through the fixing, but in the actual FX market …;

Völkerwanderung: Asylanten Lawine rollt auf Deutschland zu, 1.30 min, von Soylent Green am 22. Aug 2015 hochgeladen;

The David Icke Videocast: Jeremy Corbyn – What’s Going On? 10.39 min, uploaded by davidicke, Aug 21, 2015 … on en.wikipedia: Jeremy Corbyn (born 26 May 1949) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North since 1983.[1] A member of the Socialist Campaign Group, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, Amnesty International, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Stop the War Coalition (of which he has been the national chair since 2001), Corbyn is currently a candidate in the 2015 Labour Party leadership election …; /External Links;
Websites: Jeremy Corbyn; David Icke; Labour Party (UK);

Flüchtlinge als Migrationswaffe? – Michael Vogt mit Andreas Popp, 39.35 min, von Wissensmanufaktur am 15. Aug 2015 hochgeladen … Flüchtlinge, Migranten, mobile Arbeitskräfte – Wem nützt die durch Massenmedien, Meinungsbildungsinstitute und Politik gemachte Meinung, dass die Deutschen immer mehr davon wollen?

Obama’s Safe Zone in Syria will inflame the War Zone, on Worker’s Action, by Shamus Cooke, July 31, 2015;

Les Origines du Capitalisme, mise en ligne par Sylvain Le Mien, décembre 2014 … sur arte.TV: tome 1, 53.20 min; tome 2, 53.20 min; tome 3, 53.20 min; tome 4, 53.22 min;

… et encore ceci – Coluche:

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