Conducting the visa liberalization agreement

1. Conducting thevisa liberalization agreement by General Nenad Banović Head of the Border Police Directorate

2. Measures taken in order to maintain the visa-free travel regime with the EU The Government, on March 7th 2013, established the Commission for Monitoring the Visa-free Travel Regime with the EU for a new two-year term of office; The measures taken by the Government, the MoI and the Commission have produced good results.

3. Results The provisions related to a new criminal offence "Facilitating the abuse of the right to asylum in a foreign country" became applicable as defined in Article 350a which resulted in 9 criminal charges filed against 11 persons Criminal Police Directorate of the MoI has maximised its operative work in order to collect data and findings on persons who seek asylum in the EU member states and intensified checks in passenger transport companies and agencies providing organised transport of passengers to the EU member states; The MoT intensified control of permits issued to carriers in international road transport and penalised those carriers who had irregularities in their work; it also submitted to the MoI a Review of the restrictions regarding vehicles and conditions; The carriers in international road transport with passenger transport permits have been controlled on several occasions across the Serbia.

4. Results Criminal Police and Border Police prevented the departure of groups of Serbian citizens who organised themselves and tried to leave the country in order to seek asylum in the EU; Readmission cooperation is rather fruitful - more than 95% of readmission applications were approved; Commissariat for Refugees and Migration has implemented a series of activities aimed at providing assistance to the institutions at both central and municipal levels - the Commissariat staff held 35 workshops on reintegration of returnees under readmission agreements into receiving communities for the members of local services, a database of returnees' needs has been created, while 7,000 Information Booklets for returnees under readmission agreements have been developed and distributed, The Commissariat for Refugees and Migration drafted and proposed measures for further implementation of Strategy for Reintegration of Returnees.

5. Strategy measures To intensify informing of potential returnees and asylum seekers about the consequences of irregular stay in the EU, and about opportunities to achieve their rights in Serbia, which are most often cited as a reason for asylum; To increase the employment measures for returnees under the readmission agreements; Centers for Social Work, in cooperation with other agencies of local authorities, should immediately recognize the needs of returnees and they should, according to the territory of their jurisdiction, take necessary measures with regard to the improvement of housing conditions, involvement in health and social care and education system, and in particular they should take care about urgent needs for the provision of basic living conditions.

6. Strategy measures To intensify work with local authorities on whose territories the largest number of returnees is situated and to continue with the revision of local action plans in order to include returnees and to provide basic means at the local level for planning assistance; To work on further capacity building of the Council for the migration of those local authorities who reviewed LAP, primarily by financing activities provided by these plans; To establish coordination with Team for the Implementation of the Strategy for Improving the Situation of Roma and the Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction, and Roma coordinators; To continue cooperation with authorities in countries that return the greatest number of persons and to inform them about the rights of citizens of Serbia and possibilities and ways to achieve them; To consider the possibilities of developing programs and reaching bilateral agreements with EU countries that would create the conditions for temporary and seasonal employment of low-skilled workers from Serbia.

7. Additional activities The media campaign was dedicated to the protection of rights of all migrants; the Commissariat developed posters and fliers entitled "I don't want to seek asylum in the EU”; 3000 flyers named "false asylum seekers are risking everything" were distributed at border crossings ; The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia monitors and analyses the issue of bogus asylum seekers on a daily basis through its diplomatic and consular offices.

8. Final recommendations Based on present practices and experiences and bilateral contacts with the representatives of the countries where this issue is most pronounced, Serbian competent authorities expressed their opinion on how to mitigate this problem to some degree by recommending the following measures: To reduce or abolish welfare benefits for asylum seekers; To shorten the asylum procedure; To place Serbia on the list of "safe third countries"; In case the unfounded asylum application is rejected, the applicant should be banned to re-enter the EU countries for a certain period of time.

9. Comparative data for 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013

10. Statistics provided by diplomatic missions and consular posts in 2012

11. Statistics provided by diplomatic missions and consular posts in 2013

12. THANK YOU FOR ATTENTION!