Besa Luci in conversation with Gorana Mlinarević and Lura Pollozhani.

Migration is a topic people in the Balkans are far too familiar with. Whether we’re talking about the current economic migration to the West that is draining the region, or the millions who fled their homes in the 1990s due to the break-up of Yugoslavia and the ensuing wars, there’s hardly a single person who doesn’t have some first or second-hand experience with migration.

The topic of migration became salient again to the Balkans in 2015, when hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and a host of Middle Eastern and North African countries, fleeing war and poverty, made their way across what became known as “the Balkan route.”

Though the difficult images of bedraggled people walking for hundreds of miles inspired tremendous displays of solidarity and support, the longer term policy and political response of much of Europe was a re-commitment to blocking, with barbed wire and police batons, the refugee paths up through Europe's southern border.

Migration remains as relevant as ever for the Balkans, Europe and the globe. Kosovars remain in a seemingly never-ending visa regime by the EU and Albanians are the target of government and media campaigns of xenophobia in the U.K. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion in 2022 initially received great affection and care across the EU — though this highlighted a discrepancy between Ukrainians' warm welcome and the EU's treatment towards other equally deserving refugees.

Gorana Mlinarević and Lura Pollozhani joined us on this episode to discuss what is going on in the Balkans and in the EU in terms of migration.



Gorana Mlinarević, wrote an article for K2.0 back in 2021 titled “Why we must show feminist solidarity with people on the long road west?” that explored the idea of “Fortress Europe,” that is, how Europe has walled itself off and often refused to offer shelter to those who need it. She is an independent researcher who explores the intersections between identity politics and the economic and social realities of post-war societies.

Lura Pollozhani is a researcher at the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz. She focuses on issues related to women, radicalization and social movements. She most recently wrote for K2.0 about the EU’s continued slowness at welcoming North Macedonia and its citizens into Europe’s institutions.

This episode is produced as part of Human Rightivism, a project funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and implemented by the Community Development Fund. The views expressed in it do not necessarily reflect the views of SIDA.