Dimitar BechevAbsract :This paper explores the question of how the Western Balkans have been affected by the crisis. It looks at the emergence of the migration corridor through the region, responses from the countries involved, and the fallout from EU policy intended to address the challenge at hand.
The Balkans are no stranger to migration. Like so many other corners of Europe, the region has witnessed a great deal of population movement in both its recent and more distant past. The painful memory of forced displacement during the Yugoslav Wars of Succession in the 1990s lives on to this day. But there have been countless other episodes: from the myriads of Albanians storming into Italy and Greece after the collapse of communism to the exodus of 300,000 Bulgarian Turks in the hot summer of 1989. One should also mention the time-honoured traditions of labor migration in Western Europe, which are as alive today as when the first Yugoslav Gastarbeiters arrived in Germany, Austria or Switzerland in the 1960s.