The southeastern corner of Europe, including Kosovo, is becoming a ground where more powerful states attempt to offload one of their dilemmas: what to do with migrants they don’t want within their own borders?
Recently, Kosovo agreed to host 50 third-country migrants residing in the U.S. and has also expressed readiness to host asylum seekers rejected by the United Kingdom. Kosovo’s government, along with the Ministry of Internal Affairs responsible for implementing the agreement with the U.S., has not responded to questions from Radio Free Europe on this topic.
Kosovo’s Gains and Strategic Positioning
What Kosovo gains from this agreement has not been specified by the U.S. State Department, which only stated that the U.S. is “grateful to our partner, Kosovo, for accepting third-country nationals expelled from the United States.” Later, the Chargé d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Kosovo, Anu Prattipati, thanked Kosovo on X, stating that it became “the first country in Europe to announce it would accept third-country nationals expelled from the United States.” She added, “Securing the American border is a key priority for the Trump administration, and I value the Government and people of Kosovo for their partnership.”
Donika Emini from the Balkans Policy Advisory Group in Europe suggests these agreements should be understood “as a form of bilateral cooperation, not as a transformative moment in Kosovo’s international positioning.” She believes this “strengthens Kosovo’s image as a reliable partner, but it does not fundamentally change the dynamics of relations, especially when key political issues, like the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, continue to be a source of tension between the two countries.” As evidence, she cites an agreement between the European Union and Turkey concerning Syrian refugees, which, she says, shows that “cooperation in migration management does not necessarily translate into an improvement of broader relations if deeper political disagreements remain unresolved.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Serbia, Christopher Hill, also noted that it’s not enough for Kosovo to show it wants to help the U.S. in addressing its challenges. “Symbolic gestures of this kind, while important and useful, must be accompanied by a broader approach that ensures Kosovo is not on the list of problems,” Hill said.
Regional Context and Criticisms
Kosovo is not alone in the Balkans in accepting such responsibilities for migrant management. Albania has an agreement with Italy to accept migrants, North Macedonia has been mentioned as a potential location for an agreement with the United Kingdom, and Bosnia and Herzegovina cooperates with the EU on migration management, receiving funds and support for reception centers.
At the end of last month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the United Kingdom and the European Union not to use the Balkans as a “warehouse for migrants.” Michael Bochenek from HRW told RFE that the Balkans has become a target for such plans by more powerful states for several reasons. He suggests that Balkan countries do not have a “truly terrible history of human rights violations” (compared to other countries used for these plans, such as Rwanda, South Sudan, Libya). Bochenek adds that the influence the European Union has on countries in this region also plays a role. “For better or worse, these governments may have a sense of obligation to the European Union and may therefore be more open to these types of requests,” Bochenek said.
Olivia Sundberg Diez from Amnesty International, which has monitored and criticized such agreements for many years, identified three main steps taken by the EU recently to process migrants outside EU borders as a way to cope with a large wave of migrants. In recent months, the EU has introduced proposals that allow for the rejection of an applicant’s asylum request on the grounds that they could seek asylum elsewhere; easing the rejection and expulsion of asylum seekers from countries the EU deems safe; and the possibility of sending rejected asylum seekers to countries with which they have no connection.
“There is a deliberate attempt to shift responsibility for refugee protection to countries outside the EU, without clear legal guarantees and with much ambiguity regarding responsibility,” Diez stated. The discussion of where such return centers for migrants who aimed for the EU but whose asylum applications were rejected could be built has precisely included Western Balkan countries.
Emini suggests that these countries must understand that such agreements bring benefits, such as investments or specific support, but not progress toward EU membership. “In the future, Kosovo and other Western Balkan countries should aim to position themselves not merely as providers of sensitive services that richer states do not want to undertake, but as proactive and strategic actors in the international arena,” Emini said, adding that the Western Balkans region is being “instrumentalized without real and long-term benefits.”
In a similar agreement that also drew criticism in 2022, Kosovo and Denmark agreed to lease 300 prison cells in the Gjilan Correctional Institution to house foreign prisoners expected to be deported from Denmark after completing their sentences. In exchange, Kosovo will receive over 200 million euros, which will be invested in the Correctional Service and renewable energy projects. The first prisoners from Denmark are expected to be transferred to the Gjilan prison in the first half of 2027. Earlier, Kosovo had also sheltered around 1,900 Afghan citizens who were evacuated from Afghanistan after the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.
What Migrants Lose
Beyond the debate about the diplomatic benefits for Western Balkan states, such agreements are also raising serious concerns regarding the rights of migrants.
Bochenek from Human Rights Watch said that “these agreements are political and an attempt to circumvent human rights obligations.” He added that they often create legal uncertainty for migrants, especially for those who have no connection to the host country. “People don’t know where they are, don’t understand why they were sent there, feel lost and isolated,” he said.
Diez emphasizes that such agreements create a risk of arbitrary detentions, restrictions on access to legal aid, and difficulties in pursuing legal complaints. “You cannot implement this [agreement for return centers] in a way that is consistent with human rights,” she said.
The agreement between Italy and Albania for the transfer of migrants has encountered such difficulties since its implementation began. More than 70 individuals initially sent to Albania have returned to Italy after court decisions or due to medical needs. “We have enough evidence from extensive international research showing that such schemes – attempts to shift responsibilities as far as possible from the borders of the European Union, removing people from sight and mind – do not work and cannot be implemented in a humane way,” Diez said.
Both Diez and Bochenek stress that such schemes are also expensive for the states that fund them. For this reason, they would prefer that more powerful states invest in their own capacities for migrant management. “It seems like an extremely complicated way to address this issue, unless the real goal is simply to get people out of sight and leave the problem to others,” Bochenek said.
For Diez from Amnesty International, the lack of transparency surrounding such agreements between states is also a serious problem. “Agreements are often negotiated opaquely, without the involvement of parliament or civil society organizations,” Diez said, adding that this makes any independent oversight difficult.
She and Bochenek emphasize that it is important for activists and civil society in countries targeted for such return centers to question their governments’ decisions. “The more politicians and lawmakers are aware of the existence of local objections, the more they will be forced to take them into account,” Bochenek said. He added that such agreements are often presented as beneficial, as the state is said to gain funds or appear favorably in the eyes of a more powerful state. “But if these agreements are not carefully scrutinized, if their negative sides are not highlighted, if public opinion is not taken into account, and if the true cost they bear is not understood, then the risk is great,” Bochenek said. He added that in other similar agreements worldwide—such as with Costa Rica, Panama, or South Sudan—“these agreements have proven far more problematic for host countries than initially anticipated.”
