The fourth panel of the #LeadBalkans – Regional Leaders of Diaspora Conference, moderated by Sofija Todorović, explored “EU experiences in migration, labour and integration for the Western Balkans”, bringing together perspectives from academia, diplomacy, regional cooperation, civil society, and policy research. Panelists included Dominika Kasprowicz (Professor, Jagiellonian University in Kraków), Andreas Nagy (Austrian Embassy in Albania), Ognjen Marković (Regional Cooperation Council), Jasmin Hasić (Humanity in Action, Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Andi Hoxhaj (King’s College London).
Ognjen Marković set the scene by stressing that migration is driven by layered factors, not a single cause. Across the Western Balkans, young people face higher unemployment than the EU average, while many of those employed still deal with low wages, precarious contracts, and poor working conditions. With an ageing population of roughly 18 million across the region, he argued that migration increasingly becomes a long-term life strategy. He also emphasized that the region’s fragmentation into small markets limits opportunity, but viewed as a single regional space, the Western Balkans offers more scale, more shared prospects, and more pathways for young people.
Jasmin Hasić challenged the way the region itself is framed. He argued that “Western Balkans” is often treated as a geopolitical label shaped externally, and that grouping countries into one basket can hide important differences, especially in migration histories such as Bosnia and Herzegovina’s. He raised a pointed question: if some countries join the EU sooner than others, what happens to those left behind, and how does that reshape the “region” as a category? For him, the goal is not to reject regional cooperation, but to define it on the region’s own terms, not as an administrative construct for policy convenience.
Andi Hoxhaj argued that EU migration policy has increasingly been shaped through a securitization lens rather than a development one—focusing on controlling routes and flows, with migration becoming a politically toxic issue in many countries. In that context, he stressed the Western Balkans should not only “align” with EU approaches, but develop its own credible migration and labour policies—designed around long-term national interests, realistic labour needs, and the region’s demographic future.
From the Austrian perspective, Andreas Nagy emphasized that people cannot be “moved like boxes” and that labour policies must reflect real market demand while recognizing the complexity of identity and mobility. He noted that the traditional meaning of “diaspora” is changing in places like Vienna, where communities with Western Balkans roots are not a marginal group but part of the social mainstream across generations. He urged the region to build institutional responses that match the scale of the challenge—and to learn from the failures of others, not repeat them.
Dominika Kasprowicz highlighted the role of culture as an underestimated entry point for integration—often the first sector that creates belonging and public connection for newcomers. She drew on Poland’s experience as a country that long faced large-scale emigration and brain drain, particularly around EU accession, but that has more recently become a destination country after 2022. Citing estimates discussed in the panel, Poland now hosts around 1.7 million migrants, including about 1.1 million Ukrainians, predominantly women with children, many of whom have entered the workforce, with high shares in employment and measurable economic contribution. Her central message was that the debate should move from emigration versus immigration to circulation: a model where movement does not automatically mean loss, and where skills, creativity, and networks can return and re-connect. She also warned that migration debates are increasingly distorted by misinformation and outdated policy assumptions—while many of the deeper social challenges are often addressed first through cultural and civic initiatives.
Across the discussion, one conclusion stood out: the Western Balkans needs to stop treating mobility as a temporary crisis and start treating it as a permanent reality to govern well—through better jobs and standards at home, labour-market strategies based on evidence, institutions capable of managing mobility, and a shift from fear-driven narratives toward policies that turn movement into circulation and shared development.
