The German federal authorities told the Bundestag that 6,198 foreign nationals were deported from the country from January to June this year, after a request for the information from MPs from The Left party, media reported on Friday.
Of these deportations, the most-represented nationality was North Macedonian citizens. A total of 454 people were deported to North Macedonia in the six-month period.
Albanians were the second most-represented nationality, with 402 being deported. After Albania, the third- and fourth-most deported nationalities were Georgians and Turks.
Albania ranks by far the first amongst Balkan countries in terms of the number of asylum seekers to the EU, according to EUROSTAT data for 2021.
That year a total of 13,210 asylum seekers from Albania were registered, mostly in France, Belgium and Germany.
North Macedonia ranks second after Albania when it comes to people seeking asylum in EU countries. In 2021, 3,020 applications for asylum from North Macedonia were registered in the EU.
In 2015 Germany tried to curb the influx and listed Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo as “safe countries of origin” to discourage people from applying. But subsequent numbers showed that the steady flow of Albanian asylum-seekers has more or less continued ever since, both to Germany and to other EU countries.
The British authorities also said on Thursday that over half of migrants crossing the English Channel on small boats to reach the UK illegally are now from Albania – a significant increase on last year, Politico reported.
The British Home Office said 2,156 Albanians were recorded as arriving in the UK in the first six months of 2022, compared with just 23 in the same period the previous year, according to Politico’s report.
In Germany, the coalition agreement between the Social Democratic Party of Germany of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Greens and the Liberals envisages “an offensive for deportation with the goal of more consistent carrying out of the obligation for leaving the country”, the German Interior Ministry told German media, DW reported on Friday.
“In cases [dealing with] offenders and dangerous persons, there are regulations for easing the deportation and orders for detention prior to their deportation,” the ministry added.
But the Left Party in the German Bundestag, which asked for the new data on deportations, has been criticizing the authorities’ policy of organizing so called “mini charter flights” over the past few years to deport foreigners who have been ordered to leave the country, as well as the spending that this has incurred.
Clara Bunger, a spokesperson for The Left, told German media that “the data on how much resources the federal and local governments are willing to spend, to expel people from the country, leaves one speechless”, DW reported.
According to the federal government’s answers to The Left’s inquiry, in the first half of this year a total of 35 people were deported using these charter flights, 167 police officers have been engaged in securing the process and the overall cost amounted to 580,000 euros./BalkanInsight
