BRUSSELS (Sputnik) — The EU interior ministers will discuss on Thursday the possibility of a joint refusal to accept asylum applications from citizens of Balkan states, including Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo, as well as from Turkey, an EU source said Monday.
The Bundestag is expected to discuss proposed amendments to the country’s migration legislation to categorize Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro as safe countries of origin, free of political repression and armed conflicts, meaning migrants from these states will no longer be entitled to apply for asylum in Germany.
“Concerning the proposal about the safe countries, all six of them are registered in the European Commission proposal, and all are the countries of the Western Balkans region and also Turkey. Turkey may cause more controversy among the European Union countries, but it is also included in the European Commission package,” the EU source said.
Another EU representative noted that, in practice, nearly 97-98 percent of asylum applicants from citizens of Balkan countries lodged in member states of the European Union are rejected.
Europe is currently struggling to cope with a massive refugee crisis, as hundreds of thousands of people free war-torn regions in the Middle East and North Africa, seeking asylum in the EU bloc.
