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MR.VATLE WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO WARN AGAINST BOGUS ASYLUM-SEEKERS

24. May 2011.

At the beginning of March this year, Mr. Melkior Vatle, the Belgian Minister for Immigration and Asylum, along with Mr. Jean-Louis De Brouwer, the European Commission’s official, and Ms Denise De Hauwere, the Belgian Ambassador to Serbia, paid a visit to Bujanovac, where he talked with representatives of the Albanians from Bujanovac and Presevo about the issue of an increased number of applications of South Serbia’s citizens for asylum in Belgium.

Presidents of the Municipalities of Bujanovac and Presevo, Shaip Kamberi and Ragmi Mustafa, as well as other members of the local self-governments and the only Albanian member of the Serbian parliament, Riza Halimi, were told that “no citizens that sought asylum in Belgium after the introduction of the visa liberalization regime could get asylum for economic reasons.”

On that occasion, Melkoir Valte said that “the visa-free regime doesn’t mean that Serbia’s citizens could get a job, a house or some money in Belgium, adding that those citizens that trusted someone’s bogus promises are the greatest victims, because no one can get asylum for economic reasons”.

“As early as this week, most probably tomorrow, the first bus will leave Belgium with the people that volunteered to go back to Serbia, because they couldn’t and can’t get asylum in Belgium. They won’t be compensated by the Belgium government and will have to return to the place from where they had come from”, said Mr. Vatle.

The Belgian official was the first person that directly warned the Serbian authorities against the abolishment of the Schengen visa facilities if the inflow of bogus asylum –seekers in the EU countries continued.