In the coming days Bulgaria will extradite the first group of migrants back to Kabul by plane. The group comprises some 50 people involved in the riot at the refugee centre in Harmanli. They all entered Bulgaria illegally, have no regulated status on the territory of the country and have stated their wish to return to their country voluntarily. Voluntarily, because they have not had their wish fulfilled of reaching the land of their dreams – the wealthy countries of Western Europe, a destination in which Bulgaria is but a stopover.

The extradition of this first group was expedited after a meeting between the prime ministers of the two countries – Boyko Borissov and Abdullah Abdullah on 1 December. There are around 5,000 more Afghans in the country that will follow, something that is highly dependent on the forthcoming readmission agreement between the two countries. The prime ministers of Bulgaria and Afghanistan have agreed to task their foreign ministers with drafting such a document.

A great many of the foreigners who have entered Bulgaria illegally come from Afghanistan, yet their extradition will not go a long way to alleviate the problem of migration. After the EU-Turkey agreement on migration, the inflow of migrants from our Southern neighbour was reduced considerably, yet the migratory pressure from Bulgaria in the direction of Western Europe, across neighbouring Balkan countries and most of all Serbia, has grown. This has turned the migration problem into a domestic affair, because the efforts of the authorities are being rechanneled - from stemming the inflow of migrants, to tightening control of the passage of those already in the country and checking their attempts to leave Bulgaria in a Westerly direction. To add to these worries, there has been some evidence that the number of migrants returned to Bulgaria from countries in Western Europe is about to go up. As the week drew to a close, the efficiency of the executive in tackling the refugee problem was called into question, followed by the reproach that not only is it belittling the migratory pressure by land, but also by sea. The week ahead is fraught with expectations of repatriation of Afghan nationals. What comes next in the process of migration and which direction it may take in future is something that is hard to tell.

English version: Milena Daynova