Depopulation in the Western Balkans Introduction

The situation is not set to improve significantly in In the second half of the 20th century, the the coming decade6. [...] In the same year, If we consider specifically the countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina (8.4 births for 1000 the Western Balkans, the population rose inhabitants) and Serbia (8.9‰) were the between 1950 and 1980 from 1.25 to 2.9 only countries in the region to record crude million in Albania, from 2.7 to 4.2 million in birth rates below the EU-27 average (9.1‰)7. [...] in recent years, to the extent that Albania While some of these emigrants subsequently currently has one of the largest diasporas returned to their countries of origin, most of in the world in terms of the percentage of the them decided to remain abroad12. [...] In the wake of the conflicts of the 1990s which gave rise to major outflows, particularly to Germany and Switzerland, though many Albanians emigrated to Italy, the economic difficulties related to the post-communist 12 Between 2015 and 2020, annual net emigration from the region to the rest of the world stood at roughly 135,000. [...] The “Western Balkans route” is one of the main routes used by many migrants from the In the event of joining the EU, their citizens Middle East, Asia and Africa to enter the EU.