26 Oct 2010 / 10:05
Macedonian police are monitoring the work of several local travel agencies, as EU diplomats warn that the new wave of asylum seekers from Macedonia could threaten the country's visa-free regime.
Sinisa Jakov Marusic
"I am very concerned about the sharp rise of asylum seekers to Sweden from Macedonia lately. If this continues it might risk the whole EU visa liberalisation process, said Swedish Ambassador to Macedonia Lars Wahlund in an email to Balkan Insight.
"I will seek an urgent meeting with the Minister of Interior in Macedonia. The government should do more to inform its citizens about the rights and obligations in the visa free regime," he added.
Ambassador Wahlund pointed to the dramatic increase in migrants from Macedonia requesting asylum in Sweden, where the government registered 144 applicants from Macedonia in September 2010, compared to 44 in August.
There has been rising concern that the newest wave of asylum seekers are heading to northern Europe on organised bus tours, and the ambassador noted this worrying trend.
"There are indications that these trips to seek asylum in Sweden are organised. Poverty and economic distress are not valid grounds for asylum. The tragedy is that some people here are deceived to believe so by profiteers," he explained.
Macedonian police, meanwhile, have said that they are stepping up efforts to crack down on possible scams by travel agencies.
“We are checking intensively whether there have been some individuals or groups who have carried out scams and lured people to believe they can find a better life abroad if they pay them,” police spokesman Ivo Kotevski told Balkan Insight on Monday.
Kotevski said that police inspections are concentrated mainly on the northern Macedonian region near the town of Kumanovo and in the Roma settlement of Shuto Orizari in Skopje.
Calls to two agencies that sell bus tickets for "shopping trips" to western Europe, Skay Wim and Ab Tours, were not answered on Friday and Monday. Both businesses have been shuttered since the news of the latest wave of asylum seekers hit headlines last week.
The first groups of asylum seekers from Macedonia and neighboring countries were reported at the beginning of the year shortly after the EU scrapped visas for citizens of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro and allowed them to travel to most EU countries as tourists.
Following the dramatic increase in asylum applicants headed to western Europe from Macedonia in the beginning of this year, Macedonian authorities closed two tourist agencies and fined six more in relation to the scandal.
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