Recent reports suggesting that the United Kingdom is exploring the establishment of "return hubs" in North Macedonia for rejected asylum seekers have ignited a fierce political firestorm across the Western Balkans. The revelations have thrust migration back into the center of domestic debates, raising widespread concerns that the region is being transformed into a holding zone for Europe's unwanted migrants.
Speculation began in May 2025 following the signing of a strategic partnership agreement between the UK and North Macedonia. By early December 2025, British media outlets, including The Times, reported that London was actively considering sending rejected asylum seekers to third countries in the Western Balkans. North Macedonia, along with Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, were named as potential partners. According to the reports, the UK had offered financial compensation for every migrant taken in.
The backlash in North Macedonia was immediate and severe. Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski was forced to publicly vehemently deny the reports, dismissing them as opposition-fueled disinformation and mere speculation. "As long as I am Prime Minister, not a single camp for illegal migrants will be built, and we will not take in a single migrant," Mickoski declared.
Critics describe this emerging strategy as the "externalization" of migration policy—shifting border control and migrant housing to nations outside the European Union's legal jurisdiction. This approach mirrors the UK's controversial 2022 Rwanda deportation scheme, a project that was ultimately scrapped by Prime Minister Keir Starmer following a UK Supreme Court ruling. Now, the Western Balkans appears to be the new testing ground for these offshore migration models.
Florian Bieber, a political scientist at the Center for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, points out the stark power asymmetry at play. Western European nations are increasingly focused on border closures and isolation, while Western Balkan countries—eager for EU integration, security cooperation, and economic benefits—face immense pressure to act as accommodating partners. Bieber notes that because these EU candidate countries operate outside the formal EU asylum framework, relocating migrants there is politically more expedient.
Migration remains a deeply sensitive issue in the Western Balkans, a lingering legacy of the 2015 "Balkan route" crisis when thousands of refugees, primarily from Syria, transited through the region. According to Bieber, the regional fear of becoming "Europe's holding camp" is driven not merely by xenophobia, but by a profound sense of political instrumentalization and a loss of sovereignty.
This anxiety is exacerbated by a lack of transparent government communication. Administrations often release only fragmented details about international agreements to avoid alienating conservative and nationalist voter bases. However, this silence creates a dangerous vacuum. Olga Koshevaliska, a media researcher at the Goce Delcev University in Stip, warns that local media frequently portray migration in a sensationalized manner. Stripped of proper context, migration is framed as an immediate, uncontrollable threat—a dynamic that is rapidly amplified and weaponized across social media platforms.
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