Monday, January 30, 2012

Flux of Albanians in Britain



Flux of Albanians in Britain
A record breaking flux of Albanians in Britain is the alarm published this Monday by the “Daily Express” newspaper, known in London for the anti-emigration stances.

The newspaper says that the number of Albanians repatriated by the authorities has increased with 800%. Before the visa liberalization with the Southern European countries, in 2010, the British Authorities used to catch 2 illegal Albanian emigrants a day.

After Brussels opened its doors, according to the newspaper, 229 Albanians have been repatriated from July to September 2011. A study of the European Border Agency, Frontex, indicates the number of Albanians returned from the European borders during the same period was 3550, seven times bigger than one year ago. The details are published one week after EU opened the dialogue for the visa liberalization with Kosovo.

“These figures are only the tip of the iceberg, because they show only the ones that have been caught”, declared Gerard Batten, the British European MP form the Anti-Emigration Party, UKIP. Similar anti-emigration tones have came from the British press before other Southern European countries entered the visa free regime.

The biggest problem of London doesn’t come from the Albanians and their numbers, which are very low when compared with the Lithuanians, Poles, Romanians and Bulgarians, although they are EU member countries and benefit much more from the state finances, through social benefits. The number of Albanians involved in crime is still insignificant compared to the others, and they are still being unjustly mentioned as example, while the official British Police data indicate that they are not a problematic criminal group in UK.

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