Comparative Analysis of Refugees Coming From Balkan and the Middle East From a Legal, Economical and Moral Viewpoint

Abstract

In this work we will examine the reasons, covered with law and facts, about the recent migration crisis which had a tremendous influence on all EU and Western Balkan countries. The sole fact that thousands of refugees are being accepted to the EU without any border check in 2014 and 2015 caused the initial frustration of citizens in FYRO Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo. All these countries need endless paperwork in order to acquire a work permit in EU. On the top of this Kosovo inhabitants can not even travel to EU without Visa. This lead to the exodus of thousands of Kosovo Albanians to the EU on a well known route. The famous Balkan route as it is called commonly has its roots back into the early 90’s when the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia (SFRJ) has started. War activities became an everyday activity in many regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and later Kosovo and Metohija in Serbia. Still the borders of countries outside of ex Yugoslavia were not widely opened for refugees. On the European level the importance for regulating this was seen and a solution given in The 1990 Dublin Convention, later Regulation. Before this the main idea of refugees, in some situations dissidents, was seen in the fact that many skilled workers and craftsmen emigrated from the East (Communist) Europe to the West (Capitalist) Europe. Some of them being Political refugees (dissidents) but the main criteria for their status was mainly determined by a political or economical value they had. The value of such refugees was their knowledge, skills and competence which could be used for economic development and in some cases the bare prestige of having intellectuals fled from the communist oppression. In the 1990 Dublin Convention, the signing parties recognized the need to regulate asylum seeking. They introduced the rule of the first country of application, where the asylum seeker has applied for asylum. That means that this first country of application will exclusively deal with the asylum seekers case and either accept or reject it, after what other Dublin countries will not give a chance for another try. Now this system lived successfully for many years until Hungary did not become flooded with illegal migrants in the summer of 2015. Even after the failure of the Dublin regulation it became evident that it is not useful for the present problem and a solution has to be sought. The Hungarian solution was the infamous border lock or in Hungarian “hatarzar” whereas the EU invented, or reinvented the solution from the colonial era, the EU’s “real” solution/problem had been introduced then in the form of a quota system. The fact is that Syrian citizens have a right to claim asylum in EU, but also in many countries prior to their arrival to EU as well. Also they never intended to claim it in e.g. Hungary but they are forced to since it became obvious that people cross the border and travel without any check to different EU countries to the west. Hungary was at some point blamed for its “law” enforcement using different tools and a border fence towards Serbia on the end. We have many other questions, in particular related to the fact that refugees have to travel in very inhuman conditions. If there is a country where they want to go and that country can accept them, why don’t other countries help them to reach it easier? Why they are becoming an easy prey for people smugglers and cross border crossings illegally? On the end we will try to answer the ultimate question, why Germany? Or in other words why they are welcome on the west of EU and not so much welcome on the east of EU, when we say east we don’t mean Hungary solely.