Albanian asylum seekers in the EU
13/06/2012

Albania is still considered a safe country as regards the asylum requests, but recently there has been an increase of the asylum seekers from Albania.

The Belgian State Secretary for Emigration, visited Tirana yesterday and today  went to Shkoder, from where the comes biggest number of asylum seekers, who present fake blood feud documents.

The declaration of the Belgian official, Maggie De Block

“In Belgium, we had problems with the Albanian asylum seekers, especially in Shkoder, from where come 90% of the cases. I thank the Albanian authorities for the close cooperation in the recent months.

We are facing the asylum problem in Belgium and for this reason we have taken additional measures during the recent month, the most important of which are Albania’s establishment as a safe country. This means that the asylum request will be treated in a 15 day period.

It is very important for Albania and its citizens, because they have the right to travel in the Schengen area, but it is important to not have abuses. The EU will apply the suspension mechanism if there will be many asylum requests.

It is very important to help both countries. It is on both our interests to fight against abuses and avoid fake blood feud documents.

We had many requests on the beginning of November, but the General Director of Emigration has been in Albania and you have taken the necessary steps, and after November there have been visible progresses.

We had 342 requests in November, a number that has been reduced to 45 requests per month, which is still high. The visa removal can happen because in a democratic country, where everything functions, the people must not come to Belgium, but they should live here.