EU Readmission Policy and its Effects on Transit Countries – The Case of Albania

In 2002, the Commission reported that of the thirteen million refugees world-wide only 15 percent resided on EU territory and that over the last decade the number of asylum seekers arriving in the EU had halved.1 Nevertheless, the political debates in EU Member States as well as on EU level have become increasingly dominated by the perception of the continent being “overwhelmed” by immigrants. Currently, it seems much easier for Member States to agree upon exclusionary measures like harsher border controls, return policies, visa requirements and carrier sanctions than on issues concerning refugee protection and the creation of a common asylum system. Between 1999 and 2001, the European Commission adopted a set of proposals concerning legal immigration, refugee protection and the creation of a common European asylum system. However, Member States strongly resisted most of these proposals and achieved substantial revisions and tightening before finally adopting some of them, and only under high time pressure. Meanwhile, since 2001 the Commission has turned substantial parts of attention to illegal migration, and discussions on migration and asylum became publicly interlinked with questions of internal security and terrorism. Already in 1998 the Austrian Presidency had stated: