North Macedonia

This report examines naturalisation procedures for immigrants in Macedonia

From 1.2.2010 to 30.11.2012 the project MIDWEB made a contribution to the reconstruction and the development of the countries Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and UNSC Resolution 1244 administered Kosovo. This was facilitated by a temporary mission of highly-qualified persons, who originate from these countries and lived during the project in Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and in the United Kingdom. The project focused particularly on capacity-building in certain fields of local organisations in the target countries. The project is managed by IOM in partnership with the Migration, Asylum, Refugees Regional Initiative (MARRI), the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees in Germany and the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW), and is funded by the European Commission.

In the paper we trace how Macedonia and Serbia strategically positioned themselves regarding the government of transit migration though their territory by dynamically shifting between humanitarianism and securitization before the formalized corridor emerged, during its existence, in the process of its closure, and after it was shut down. This is not to say that precise dates can be pinpointed to distinguish these “phases”: the emergence of the formalized corridor in the south of the Balkan route, for example, was a dynamic process which resulted from the interplay of state practices, practices of mobility, activities of activists, volunteers, and NGOs, media coverage, etc. The same applies for its closure. However, the text follows a diachronic line in which we describe the contextual factors that decisively shaped the transformation of the migration policies of the two states. It focuses in particular on transportation practices, accommodation, (in)visibility of migrants, activity of (non-)state actors, unique national instruments (such as the 72-hours paper), the One Stop centres and the transit zones at the Serbian-Hungarian border.

The book illustrates the results of the new edition of the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX). MIPEX is a unique tool which measures policies to integrate migrants in countries across five continents, including all EU Member States (including the UK), other European countries (Albania, Iceland, North Macedonia, Moldova, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine), Asian countries (China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, and South Korea), North American countries (Canada, Mexico and US), South American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile), and Australia and New Zealand in Oceania. MIPEX analyses integration policies in the following eight areas of integration: Labour market mobility; Family reunification; Education; Political participation; Permanent residence; Access to nationality; Anti-discrimination; and Health. To cite: Solano, Giacomo & Huddleston, Thomas (2020). Migrant Integration Policy Index 2020. Barcelona/ Brussels: CIDOB and MPG. ISBN: 978-84-92511-83-9

The proposed project aims to examine the ways in which the principles used in the social sciences to explain the social world might interact with the interpretative resources that are used by lay social actors to make sense of this world. The project aims to examine this by focusing on the underlying processes of interaction between social scientific and everyday lay discourses: the different ways in which social-scientific discourses are synthesised, how these discourses are filtered back to lay discourses, and how these discourses are taken up by lay social actors. The topics selected to probe these issues are identity, citizenship and migration. There have been global developments in these areas since the 1990s and there has been a proliferation of both social scientific and lay discussions concerning them. The interaction between social scientific and lay discourses will be studied by conducting a systematic review of social science texts on identity, citizenship and migration and by interviewing immigrants and locals in Central Macedonia, Greece. Both sets of discourses will be analysed for correspondence of themes and arguments. The role of policy will also be examined by considering the ways in which policy is manifested in those discourses. The project draws on Critical Discursive Psychology (CDP) and Social Network Analysis (SNA). The project will be of interest to academic users in the sociology of science and knowledge, and in discourse, identity and migration studies; and to non-academic users such as policymakers, local government and non-governmental agencies and local communities and interest groups.

The importance of providing for effective, time and cost-saving maintenance of Non-Intrusive Inspection Systems (NIIS) cannot be overstated. For the purpose of our proposal, NIIS are X-ray systems deployed to inspect all types of parcels, baggage, cargo, vehicles, containers, and trains, in a non-intrusive manner. Over the past 10 years Danlex has realised sales of NIIS equipment and NIIS maintenance services totalling more than EUR 40 million in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Kosovo. Airports, customs administrations, border police, harbours, and other authorities responsible for protecting the freedom and security of societies worldwide (security organisations) in the European Union and worldwide have been charged with: preventing global terrorist threats and illegal human trafficking; detecting and identifying illicit or undeclared goods; increasing security to the global supply chain. To tackle these challenges security organisations have increasingly been utilising NIIS equipment over the last two decades, as the most effective equipment for fulfilling their duties in compliance with the applicable regulations and standards. With the average NIIS lifespan of 10 years the maintenance has proved to be high and lead to much higher than anticipated running costs over the equipment’s lifetime, totalling to 100% of NIIS purchase price. To ensure value for money, it is important that NIIS operate with maximum efficiency and at the lowest possible level of maintenance and life-cycle costs. NIIS maintenance solution enabled by PMT (PMT4NIIS) will allow us to equip the security organisations and market stakeholders with the next generation of NIIS maintenance. Independent reports estimate that with reliability-centered maintenance powered by predictive models, stakeholders in other markets spend 15% of their overall maintenance time on Predictive Maintenance, yet achieve an impressive 50% decrease in maintenance costs.

Following entering into force of the EU legislative acts on demography statistics, the demographic data at regional level are annually collected from 36 countries in the frame of the UNIDEMO that is the main demographic data collection of Eurostat in the domains of demography and migration. As the most extended annual Eurostat demographic data collection, UNIDEMO (acronym from Unified Demography) collects data on population stocks, vital events (live births and deaths), marriages, divorces and migration flows at national and regional levels by various breakdowns. The statistics corresponding to the reference year T shall be transmitted by countries to Eurostat by the deadline of 31 December of the calendar T+1, and will be disseminated during March of the calendar year T+2. Demographic data at regional level include statistics on population stocks at the end on the calendar year and on vital events (live births and deaths) occurred along the year being territorially disaggregated by NUTS 2 and 3 levels, in accordance with the following EU legal acts: - Article 3 of the Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 on European demographic statistics and its implementing measures stated in the Regulation (EU) No 205/2014; - Regulation (EU) 868/2014 which is the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics, abbreviated as NUTS. The current classification known as NUTS-2013 subdivides the territory of the European Union into 98 regions at NUTS level 1, 276 at NUTS level 2 and 1342 at NUTS level 3. The NUTS is the official division of the EU for regional statistics. - For Candidate and EFTA countries the data are collected according to the agreed statistical regions that have been coded in a way that resembles NUTS. The current Candidate Countries for which data at regional level are collected are Montenegro, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Turkey. Demographic data breakdown collected at regional level according to the above EU legal acts vary according to the NUTS level. The following statistics are available: Table codeDescription demo_r_gind3Population change - Demographic balance and crude rates at regional level (NUTS 3) 

Historically, Luxembourg has developed during the last 68 years strong links with the Western Balkan countries. In 1970, a labour agreement was signed between the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the Former Republic of Yugoslavia to provide for workers to come to work in Luxembourg. This bilateral agreement created a diaspora from the Western Balkans in Luxembourg. Montenegrin nationals represent the largest third-country national population while the Serbians and the Bosnians represents the 3rd and 4th largest nationality groups. There has been a significant number of naturalisations from the West Balkan countries during the last 10 years. This diaspora was a significant “pull factor” during the Yugoslav Wars (1991-1999) and the economic crisis of 2008. This study was unable to verify direct and automatic links between the entering into force of the visa liberalisation agreements with the West Balkans countries and Eastern Partnership countries and an impact for Luxembourg. The large majority of increases, independently if it is legal migration, irregular migration or international protection did not occur during the next year following the entering into force of the agreements. These increases occurred generally during the second year or later. Concerning visa liberalisation agreements with the Western Balkan countries, the first findings are a dramatic increase of international protection applicants from those countries since the agreements came into force. In the international protection field and in the framework of the return decisions, the visa liberalisation agreement had a negative impact generating stress for all the public administrations during 2011 and 2012, which have to deal with international protection and the return mechanism. During 2011, there was a significant increase of applicants from Macedonia and Serbia and in 2012 from Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina. This situation placed the Luxembourgish authorities under significant stress to deal with this significant inflow of applicants, whose applications were, in the large majority of cases (80%), rejected. However, this situation obliged the Luxembourgish government to take measures in order to deal in a very efficient manner with these inflows of international protection applicants as well as to overhaul the entire international protection procedure. These measures can be divided into two different: procedural measures and implementation measures. The most significant procedural measures are: a) the introduction of the fast track procedure and the implementation of the ultra-expedite procedure; b) the introduction of these countries in the list of safe countries of origin. These measures allow the authorities to deal more efficiently with the massive influx of international protection applicants coming from the region. The implementation measures are: a) No access to social aid for the applicant benefiting from a commitment to cover all expenses by a Luxembourg national, EU citizen or TCN residing in Luxembourg; b) substantial decrease in monthly cash amounts of social aid for adult individuals and households; c) Recruitment and reallocation of staff in the Directorate of Immigration and the Luxembourg Reception and Integration office; d) implementing the Assisted voluntary return Balkans (AVR Balkans) which only covers the return bus ticket; and e) strengthen cooperation with the authorities of the Western Balkan countries. During 2017, there was an increase in the number of international protection applicants from Georgia and Ukraine, even though both countries are included in the list of safe countries of origin. As Luxembourg does not have external borders with the exception of the International Airport, it is not possible to obtain pertinent information concerning the detection of irregular entries in the territory. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that some individuals from these countries have taken advantage of the visa liberalisation agreements to come to work irregularly in Luxembourg, even if it is not possible to quantify the scale of the phenomenon. The findings of this study do not show an increase in the number of applications for authorisation of stay or residence permits (remunerated and study activities), so the EU visa liberalisation agreements did not have any impact in the legal migration field. The increase of application was visible after the second year of entering into force of these agreements but the numbers were not significant in regard with number of applications made by third-country nationals during the same period. However, the short-stay visits (i.e. friends, family, tourism, etc.) seem not only to have been facilitated, but also increased. In some cases, these short-visits have also been used not only to visit family and friends but also to be familiarized with the Luxembourgish society and to explore job opportunities and look for housing. This is probably the only positive impact that the visa liberalization agreements have had. Seen that the visa liberalisation agreements only allow travelling without a visa, but they do not allow working and staying in the country, and based on the data collected there is not possible to establish a link between them and any significant impact with regard to economy and to criminality (especially related to traffic of human beings or smuggling, where the numbers are very low and not directly related in most cases to nationals concerned by this study).

The Statelessness Index is a comparative tool that assesses European countries’ law, policy and practice on the protection of stateless people and the prevention and reduction of statelessness, against international norms and good practice. It is a tool created for civil society, government, researchers, the media and other interested individuals. The Index was developed and is maintained by the European Network on Statelessness (ENS). The Index allows users to quickly understand which areas of law, policy and practice can be improved by states and which can be looked to as examples of good practice in addressing statelessness. The Index is the first to provide comprehensive and accessible comparative analysis of European countries’ efforts to address statelessness. The Index assesses how countries in Europe perform against international norms and good practice for the protection of stateless people and the prevention and reduction of statelessness. A country’s performance is assessed against a set of benchmarks drawn from international and regional human rights standards, soft law, relevant reports, and consultation with experts. The index covers 18 countries for the period 2017-2019. It consists of 23 indicators sorted in 5 strands: International and regional instruments; Statelessness Population Data Availability; Statelessness Determination and Status; Detention; Prevention and Reduction. The country data is gathered through a detailed survey, structured around the themes and subthemes. The surveys are completed by country experts (researchers, lawyers, NGOs and other civil society actors), referenced with links to sources, reviewed by a second country expert, and then returned to the ENS Secretariat for analysis.

The MACIMIDE Global Expatriate Dual Citizenship Dataset charts the rules that existed in near all states of the world since 1960 with regard to the loss or renunciation of citizenship after a citizen of a respective state voluntarily acquires the citizenship of another state. The central variable of the Dataset is the dualcit_cat variable. This is a categorical variable whose values may be used to interpret, in broad lines, the position of a country with regards to the expatriate dual citizenship. The dualcit_cat variable reflects what consequences the legislation and legal practice of a country attaches to the voluntary acquisition of a foreign citizenship. The value of this variable depends on a number of criteria, including whether a citizen of the reference country who voluntarily obtains a foreign citizenship automatically loses – in principle – the citizenship of the origin country, and whether a citizen of the reference country can renounce that citizenship. The value assigned to dualcit_cat reflects the position of the country on the 1st of January of the reference year. Any subsequent changes in legislation will be reflected in the dualcit_cat value of the following year and included in updated versions of the Dataset. The dualcit_binary variable is a recoding of the dualcit_cat variable. This variable can be used for broad comparisons of the dual citizenship positions around the world. The possible values reflect whether the legislation of a country, in a given reference year, provides for the automatic loss of the origin citizenship (1) or not (2). All data have been centrally collected and refer to specific provisions in national law.

CITLAW indicators address citizenship laws (acquisition and loss of citizenship) in Europe. Basic indicator scores are calculated on the basis of a list of substantive and procedural requirements for each mode of acquisition or loss using both additive and weighting formulas. CITLAW indicators are also aggregated at different levels in order to analyse more general features of citizenship laws. The 6 highest level CITLAW indicators that are calculated using all 45 basic indicators are: ius sanguinis, ius soli, residence-based ordinary naturalisation, naturalisation on specific grounds, voluntary renunciation and withdrawal/lapse. CITLAW indicators have been calculated for 42 European states for 2011 and 2016. Coding of CITLAW indicators is based on an assessment of legal provisions in national citizenship laws.

Since the mid-1970s, the World Population Policies Database, last updated in 2015, provides comprehensive and up-to-date information on the population policy situation and trends for all Member States and non-member States of the United Nations. Among several areas, the database shows the evolution of government views and policies with respect to internal and international migration. The migration strand covers internal migration, immigration, emigration, and return. The Database is updated biennially by conducting a detailed country-by-country review of national plans and strategies, programme reports, legislative documents, official statements and various international, Inter-governmental and non-governmental sources, as well as by using official responses to the United Nations Inquiry among Governments on Population and Development.