At the end of the year in which a record number of asylum seekers were declared in Serbia (over 10.000), it seems that the competent institutions learned some lessons from last winter, when hundreds of migrants from Asia and Africa slept in the woods around the Center for Accommodation of Asylum Seekers in Bogovađa .
About this year's activities of the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration of the Republic of Serbia, "Vreme" spoke with Ivan Gerginova, the assistant commissioner who mainly deals with asylum.
"WEATHER": Compared to the end of the previous year, what is different today in the asylum system in Serbia?
IVAN GERGINOV: In 2014, the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration entered with practically three centers for asylum seekers. Koviljača spa has been there since before, Bogovađa since 2011, and at the end of 2012 a third center was opened in the hotel "Obrenovac" in Obrenovac. At the beginning of 2014, centers were opened in Sjenica and Tutin, and a few months ago in Krnjaca. In the meantime, Obrenovac was closed due to the flood situation and today it is used to provide housing for the vulnerable resident population. We hope that this hotel will return to our system.
At the moment, this house has a dispersion in five municipalities, that is, six - including Obrenovac. The accommodation capacity has been raised to 770 places, and with that number we are in the range of countries in the surrounding area. We continue to find opportunities to expand capacities in cases of unexpected influx of asylum seekers.
In cooperation with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, we managed to assign one policeman to each of the centers. We are still working on agreeing on the most efficient model that would easily recognize faces that were already in the system.
In what way?
By comparing photos and fingerprints. To see if the person really has that name, if he is reporting to the center for the fifth time, if he abused the hospitality of the Republic of Serbia, if he has a court ban on staying in Serbia...
What is it going to be compared to when prints have not been taken and faces have not been photographed?
You are asking me about matters that are under the jurisdiction of the MUP. We are on the way to solve it organizationally well and make it efficient.
Until the determination of the identity of the persons and the organization is resolved, what do MUP officers do? and which are in the centers?
They issue asylum intentions and assist in interviewing the person. Otherwise, the situation today is that we have slightly less than 400 occupied and about 350 free places. That means it's a pretty relaxed situation at the moment, but we're not going to relax. From March 1, we act as if winter has already begun.
There are no people in the forest in Bogovaja?
A meeting of disgruntled residents was held in Bogovađa, organized by the local community council. My colleague Šurlan and I were at the meeting, however, they did not allow us to speak.
The next day, we made an action with the Border Police Administration and together with the representatives of the local community council, the manager of the Center for accommodation of asylum seekers and representatives of asylum seekers visited all the disputed locations where these people are said to be. We found a total of seven faces.
All seven people have been taken to the Center, so the police will triage them and see what to do with them. Therefore, there are no irregular migrants in the buildings and forests around the center in Bogovađa.
And that is an important difference compared to last year...
It is. The important difference is that we have seats, but it is very important not to act sensationally when it comes to this topic, as the "Večernje Novosti" journalist did. Young colleague Đurović gave him a fair interview, and the headline after that was "Syrians occupied Belgrade". That was not said anywhere, not even in the hint... On the contrary.
Instead of sensationalism, we should work on establishing tolerance, on breaking stereotypes and fears. These are people who are in trouble, who pass through here. They didn't even dream of being in Krnjača, they are here because Krnjača is on their way to a more northern country that has a more serious economy and a more serious protection system.
In the last three months, the average stay of asylum seekers in the centers is from five to ten days. It should be borne in mind that only people who run out of money contact us.
You mentioned that the accommodation capacities are equal to the capacities of the countries in the region. What is not uniform is the number of expressed intentions. Why is that so? Why does everyone go through Serbia??
It is obvious that triage methods are different in the region. The bottom line is not to allow abuse of the asylum system and for someone, and that someone is now the Ministry of Interior, to do a serious triage and see what happens next with the persons caught as irregular migrants on the territory of Serbia, and what with those who declare themselves as seekers asylum.
You believe that there is an abuse of the system?
Yes. There certainly is. The facts show that out of 10.000 expressed intentions, only 1 persons reported to the centers by November 7000. This is the lowest number since 2009. There have always been 40 to 50 percent of people who do not come to the centers at all. It is obvious that they took the certificate of expressed intention in order to use it as an instrument of protection against being subject to sanctions due to their illegal stay in the territory of the Republic of Serbia.
This speaks in favor of the thesis that only those who have no money end up in the centers, where they wait for their money to arrive via Western Union. People who are sick or have experienced some inconvenience on the way also come to the centers, so they need some time to consolidate.
This year, Mladenovac is also relevant again...
The Mladenovac case has been ongoing since 2012. It is an environment that has never seen an asylum seeker, and in a survey conducted by Ninamedia, they are spoken of extremely negatively and with phobic fear. On the other hand, environments such as Banja Koviljača give completely different answers.
Therefore, the decision of the Government of the Republic of Serbia to open a new center for the accommodation of asylum seekers in Mala Vrbica near Mladenovac is currently not enforceable because there is a population there that resists it.
We are the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration and life in that center, if there is one, we will organize depending on the decisions from the top. That process takes quite a long time. The situation is already chronic and the issue is quite sensitive. We are not the address from which the solution to that problem can arrive.
We're in the mood to get in there. We have the means and the know-how to build a center there in which there will be no more than 300 people. Various ideas were presented at those meetings, which I tried to attend. Therefore, it is not about thousands of asylum seekers, but no more than 300.
And who decided that the new place for the center should be Mala Vrbica? All kinds of people talk about that barracks: from stories about pears from which someone makes brandy to radioactive missiles left over from NATO bombing...
Yes, there are all kinds of stories. I was told personally that in Mala Vrbica 3000 asylum seekers produce ceramic tiles... These are the consequences of the sensationalism of your profession.
We are at a moment when we are negotiating Chapter 24 and when it is the most prominent and topical issue and now we do not need such own goals at all.
The barracks in Mala Vrbica was designated because it was exempted from the master plan of the Serbian Armed Forces and marked as an object that is no longer part of the Serbian defense system and could be used for another purpose. Given that the Republic of Serbia and the Commissariat, as a state body, had a need for such an object, such a purpose came about. On the other hand, we cannot use the funds from the pre-accession funds, which we have already received, if the building is not owned by the Republic of Serbia.
Funds for the renovation of that building are still available?
The project was postponed twice. It is worth three million euros and we still manage to keep it current. It would be good to solve this problem in one way or another. It doesn't matter to us at the Commissariat.
Another change compared to the previous year is work on amendments to the Asylum Act. What's going on with that??
We intensified our contacts with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and periodically meet with the Ombudsman. We are working on that topic, and I have already said that there is progress in terms of the engagement of MUP officers in each of the centers.
What else does that working group do??
We are looking to fix everything that can be fixed now, which is allowed by the rules and the institutional framework. The law in itself is not so bad as all the actors of the asylum procedure had shortcomings in their work.
The Ministry of Interior's work plan for next year includes a proposal for a new law on asylum. There we have an approved twinning project through which we will work in more detail on all the shortcomings of the system.
The twinning project was mentioned several times, but never in detail. What exactly is it about??
The delegation issued an invitation to which people who have some experience with the situation in Serbia responded. It is not yet known with which country exactly the project will be implemented, but it will be experts from the European Union who have experience and knowledge about the asylum system in Serbia. On our side, representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Commissariat will participate. We will sit and write and write it over the next year. It will also be at the public hearing and subject to the opinions of the non-governmental sector.
And what will the project deal with?
It will deal with the elimination of deficiencies in our system and harmonization with the legislation of the European Union. Some time has passed since 2008. We saw what we did well and what we did poorly, so we will organize it all to be more operational.
How does the Commissariat look at the disproportion between the number of expressed intentions for asylum, the number of procedures carried out and the number of granted refugee protection?
That, again, is the competence of the MUP. However, we are not completely on the sidelines either, given that we are designated in the Migration Management Act as someone who will propose measures and synchronize the work of all involved institutions.
The main thing that needs to be said here and that no non-governmental organization, especially UNHCR, likes to hear is the fact that we are not the final destination for those unfortunate people. None of them set out to be and stay in Bogovađa, Vračevići or Mala Vrbica, but somewhere a little further north where the economic circumstances are more favorable. For that reason, this issue is less important, so to speak.
It's slow going. We have only four protections awarded this year out of a total of 17 since 2008 and that is really not much, but when you compare it to a real desire, not an abuse and a way to get somewhere else easier, then it is right where it is. Both you and I would be happy if those people wanted to stay here because it would mean that our salary is 2000 euros.
In this sense, is the integration of people who received refugee protection less important??
Integration is important and this is something we are lagging behind. Two by-laws should be made. One is about the accommodation conditions of persons who have been granted refugee protection, and the other is about ways of inclusion in the environment. We have some drafts of those by-laws, but we will wait for 2015 and do everything with experts from the EU.
Apart from the mentioned twinning project, what else is planned for next year?
In cooperation with the MUP, therefore, we are improving the situation within the existing framework. It remains to make a new law, to be wise and careful and to initiate it so that it can live.
As far as we in the Commissariat are concerned, we need to create those two by-laws, to equip more capacities that, God willing, will one day be empty, but until then we must be ready for anything and never have Bogovadja happen again.
You're sure that won't happen this winter?
We are doing everything to prevent that from happening and we are actively working on it. Of course, to the extent that the objective situation allows. Sometimes there are financial problems, and sometimes there is a flood in Obrenovac. You know, life is a miracle and everything happens there. We manage to be flexible in a way and control the situation for now. The influx is constantly increasing and is completely unpredictable.
