Balkan Route

The Balkan Route was one of the most significant trade and military routes in Europe, it was of central importance for the Crusades and the Habsburg Monarchy. Today migration routes between the Middle East and Europe via the Balkans are known as the Balkan Route. The term was mainly used in connection with the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe.

According to the EU Commission, almost 700,000 people came from Greece to Central Europe on the Balkan Route in the first ten months of 2015, resulting in transit states taking measures to curb the flow of refugees. After an EU summit in March 2016, Slovenia and other states announced measures that made the Balkan Route even more impermeable than before. Austria‘s foreign minister at the time and current chancellor emphasised that this should remain that way in the long term (“Balkan Route closed”). In 2019, around 80,000 people migrated via the Balkan Route.

Migration on the eastern Balkan Route (Bulgaria and Romania) began to slowly increase in the early 2000s. Restrictions introduced by the EU and Turkey led to a shift to the western Balkan Route, via Greece, Albania, North Macedonia, Bosnia ...

More recently, the Balkan Route has again received a great deal of media attention through reports on the inhumane conditions in Greek and Bosnian refugee camps (Vučjak, Lipa, Velika Kladusa, Moria, Kara Tepe ...).

The studio “Balkan Route” deals with geographical, political and social dimensions of migration movements in the Balkans. In particular, it questions the humane accommodation for migrants, the logistics of refugee camps in general and integration of such with neighbouring settlements. “Temporary” living (often for many years) with the rejection of the local population in less affluent countries poses complex challenges to the location and design of refugee camps.

During the summer semester 2021 TU Wien students researched topics related to the Balkan Route. Later during the summer school in August 2021 in Sarajevo they developed projects along the Route with students from Sarajevo and Tirana. This publication shows the result of both the research topics and the workshop outcome.