Migration, anti-extremism focus of Western Balkans summit

Already in Vienna are the government heads of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia, along with other ministers from those EU-aspirant countries.

The European Commission had granted over EUR90,000 in humanitarian assistance to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on July 31 and EUR150,000 to Serbia on August 20 in response to this emergency situation.

The Western Balkans Summit is part of the Berlin Process, a five-year process marked by yearly summits in order to underline the EU’s commitment to enlargement.

And Germany has called on all European states to share the burden.

While those countries are seeing their own outflow of migrants to Western Europe, they have also become integral stepping stones for groups of migrants predominantly from the Middle East and Asia who arrive in Greece and then seek their way into more western parts of Europe via the Balkans.

“The Western Balkans are dealing with an unprecedented number of transiting refugees and migrants”.

Police in Hungary, which is building a fence to keep migrants out, fired tear gas on Wednesday to deter hundreds of trying to get into the country from its southern border with Serbia.

“Unless we have a European answer to this issue, none of us should be under any illusion that this will be solved”, Poposki said.

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz appealed for a fairer redistribution of migrants ahead of the talks in an interview with German broadcaster ARD.

Majority want to go on to more affluent western EU countries such as Germany and Sweden by crossing from Serbia into Hungary, the start of the EU’s Schengen zone of passport-free travel.

One piece of advice for the EU is to tackle potentially problematic disputes early on in the EU accession process before they turn into major obstacles by using conditionality and the joint membership perspective as a driving force towards a compromise.

Smugglers based in Libya are believed to be taking advantage of calmer seas to send more boatloads of migrants towards European shores.

The White House said that this was especially the case when it came to providing a safe haven to Syrian refugees.

European officials have described the plight of migrants as “beyond urgent”.

That compares with 123,500 in the same period a year ago.