Minister of Interior Gordana Jankuloska and Peter Widermann, Director General of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), signed Wednesday in Skopje a Declaration of Intent under which Macedonia becomes the 15th member of this organization.

By signing the declaration, Macedonia reaffirms the commitment to harmonize its migration policy with the European standards, which additionally underlines the significance of international cooperation in this sphere, Jankuloska said at the signing ceremony.

The implementation of consistent migration policy in Macedonia is being conditioned by the growing migration across the globe, which do not bypass the country, she said.

Since the beginning of this year 210 illegal migrants have been discovered in Macedonia, mainly from Pakistan, Afghanistan, but also Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Eritrea, Sudan, Egypt, Bangladesh and other countries, Jankuloska said.

"The Ministry of Interior will keep investing all of its capacity to secure the state borders, as well as to discover and appropriately treat the migrants that illegally entered the country," she said.

Macedonia is neither the starting point nor final destination of those migrants, who aspire to reach EU countries after living their homelands.

"So we may say that this problem has been imposed on us from outside. So those who have created the problem should also bolster their efforts for its surpassing. Our analyses say that in over 90 percent of  the cases the illegal migrants enter the country via our border with Greece," Jankuloska said.  

ICMPD, Widermann said, has been assisting countries in developing policies in migration-related areas and transferring know-how on dealing with migration issues.

"Our organization is ready to support Macedonia's EU membership and cooperate with it in terms of meeting certain criteria, necessary for accessing the European family," Widermann said.

ICMPD was established by Austria and Switzerland in 1993 and has since grown to 14 member states. ICMPD was founded to carry out research, projects and activities on migration-related issues and to provide policy recommendations to the governmental agencies of states, as well as to external governmental and intergovernmental agencies. ICMPD also has observer status at the United Nations.

Although ICMPD has global operations, it is primarily focused on the European area and is headquartered in Vienna, Austria.