Euro-deputies back suspending Balkan visa-free regime ‘as a last resort’

The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee on 8 April 2013 voted in favour of suspending visa-free regimes in case of "substantial and sudden increases" in irregular migrant numbers or unfounded asylum applications but “only as a last resort.”

Prior to having the visa lifted in 2009, some 940 nationals from Macedonia and just over 5,000 Serbs sought asylum in the EU.
This jumped to 7,550 and 17,715 respectively in 2010 before dropping in 2011 and then increasing again in 2012.
Overall asylum claims from around the word to the EU in 2011 was just over 300,000.

• Primary Source

ESO: Background information: EU plans to tighten visa rules http://www.europeansources.info/record/eu-plans-to-tighten-visa-rules/

European Parliament: Press release: EU must be enabled to enforce visa reciprocity, say Civil Liberties MEPs http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fTEXT%2bIM-PRESS%2b20130408IPR07104%2b0%2bDOC%2bXML%2bV0%2f%2fEN&language=EN

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