SECURITY – INTEROPERABILITY- COOPERATION-INFORMATION SHARING-ACTION ON MANAGING MIGRATION FLOW IN THE WESTERN BALKANS

Abstract

Western Balkans are entering into the seventh active year of mass-migration crisis with mixed results on the ability to direct, manage, house, register, assist and repatriate certain migrants or groups of migrants. This study collated available information from various process stakeholders and analysed strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats (SWOT) in the approaches to migrant crisis in North Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo*, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The main goal of the study was to investigate if the opportunities were seized / missed in improving cooperation, communication, interoperability among the stakeholders to make the flow of migration more humane, manageable, transparent (accountable) and effective in the field. Given security considerations and challenges of the migration flow as well as its subsidiary elements involving human smuggling / human trafficking and movement of problematic personnel, the analysis highlights some of the novel operative and technical solutions that can be fielded to improve identification, registration and additional screening or removal as required. Particularly important elements are the advances in digital data capture, biometrics, correlation, language recognition and information sharing among the varying levels of stakeholders. The analysis also identified significant opportunities in improving communication and data sharing among the principal countries of the migration route (North Macedonia – Serbia – Bosnia and Herzegovina), which could be beneficial in enhancing other security-related issues among the Western Balkan countries. The main challenge encountered is the lack of communications and reporting protocols as well as lack of documentation standards suitable for data entry, storage, indexing and searching. The analysis concludes that implementation of standardized, technical solutions may resolve some of the identified communications, mistrust or data sharing issues described in the SWOT analyses.

Keywords

• migrations
• western balkans
• interoperability
• information-sharing
• swot