Managing Migration: The Balkans United against Refugees

In 2015, alone, almost a million refugees sought to reach Northwestern Europe by traveling from Turkey, through Greece and Macedonia, and then across Serbia, Hungary, or Croatia, following what became known as the Balkan route. Despite the numerous problems associated with this route, it remained functional until March 8, 2016, when the EU member states reached a deal with Turkey that has put a stop to this particular migrants’ itinerary. Like the member states of the European Union, the Balkan countries have been dealing with migration problems in an obsolete manner. Wars and their attendant difficulties in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990s generated huge surges of refugees. Nonetheless, despite the experience of dealing with these surges, the Balkan countries, like the member states of the European Union, have failed to respond appropriately to the current migration and refugee crises. The experience of the 2015 influx of migrants and refugees into the European Union has shown that it is of paramount importance to find an alternative way to deal with migration issues, which would entail a fundamental shift in migration policies in line with global technological developments and geopolitics