Balkan barometer: More than half of respondents from Kosovo want to emigrate

Emigration and "brain drain" from the countries of the Western Balkans is one of the biggest problems for the region. The Balkan Barometer 2023 survey showed that as many as 44 percent of respondents in the region want to leave their country, which is five percent more than last year. Among young people, that percentage is even more alarming - 71 percent of young people want to live abroad, far from their country of origin.

According to Barometer data, Kosovo is leading in the region - where more than half of the respondents, 57 percent, want to go.

Followed by Montenegro with 45 percent, Albania with 44, Serbia with 41 and Bosnia and Herzegovina with 38 percent.

The data also show that 59 percent of those surveyed believe that support for European integration in the Western Balkans has decreased.

Individually, such a perception is most pronounced in Albania - as many as 92 percent of citizens think that EU support in the region has declined. In Kosovo, 66 percent of respondents think the same, in North Macedonia 60 percent, in Bosnia and Herzegovina - 52 percent and in Serbia slightly more than a third, 34 percent.

About 60,000 citizens and 12,000 businessmen in the Western Balkans participated in the Balkan Barometer survey, conducted by the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), who answered questions about their expectations, the political and socio-economic situation in the region, as well as their attitudes towards regional cooperation and the integration of the Western Balkans into the EU.

The data also show that the citizens of the Western Balkans see corruption as the biggest problem for the development of the region, and 27 percent of them say that the level of corruption has increased.

Thus, 38 percent of Albanian citizens surveyed see their country as the "most corrupt" in the region. In second place are Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia, with 26 percent, followed by Montenegro and Serbia with 25 percent.

Kosovo has the lowest level of perception of corruption - 22 percent.

In the region, more than two-thirds of citizens - 69 percent of them believe that the law does not apply to everyone equally, and that is seven percent more than last year.

The data also show that three out of four citizens of the region do not trust political parties.