The visa regime will not be reinstated for Macedonia and the other countries of the Western Balkans. This is the final stand of the European Commission, which, following the wave of fake asylum seekers that overran some of the EU member states, introduced reinforced supervision of the visa free regime with the countries of the Western Balkan earlier this year, Nova Makedonija reports.

“The European Union is going to give support to these countries in reducing the number of asylum seekers in the EU by way a continuous dialogue. The measures that the Macedonian Government carried out bore fruit. The number of the asylum seekers has dropped. However it has to be underlined that the problem still exists,” European Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said Tuesday.

The European Commission decided to supplement the visa regulations, which will not be effectuated in any country for the time being but will be a protective mechanism for the countries of the Union and the Schengen area if there is a threat in the future of an uncontrolled inflow of immigrants. The decision sets out the conditions under which it will always be possible to reintroduce temporarily the visa regime for the countries whose citizens misuse the visa liberalization.

The Council of Ministers of the Union is set to adopt on 9 and 10 June the proposal of the European Commission that Commissioner Malmstrom submitted to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on 12 May this year.

In the recent period, stricter measures have been announced in Macedonia and Serbia to avert the surge of fake asylum seekers in the EU member states. The Macedonian Government proposed modifications to the criminal law, under which the abuse of the visa liberalization will be punishable by an imprisonment sentence of up to eight years, a fine of up to 30 million denars and taking away of the passport. The authorities in Belgrade said that in the future Serbian citizens traveling to the EU would be asked to provide at borders sufficient amount of money, a return ticket and insurance.