Lost in Translation: Open Balkan ID Initiative Yet to Take Off

Launched six months ago, the Open Balkan ID Number was presented as marking the start of a single labour market between Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania. It has had some teething troubles.
Andrija Ivanov spent years moving from job to job, place to place in his native Serbia. Then, in 2021, he took a holiday in Albania. Something clicked, and Ivanov resolved to move. The Open Balkan initiative seemed to come along at exactly the right moment.

Envisaged as a vehicle to remove barriers to the free movement of goods, services and people, Open Balkan currently takes in European Union membership candidates Serbia, Albania and North Macedonia.

In March 2024, Serbia unveiled the Open Balkan ID number, issued by each participating country and with which, for example, Serbian citizens can, in theory, apply to live and work in Albania or North Macedonia without having to pay for or even seek a work or residence permit.

Fifty-seven year-old Ivanov tried to give it a go. Generating the ID number on Serbia’s e-government portal was the easy bit; the problems started when he tried to use it in the Albanian system.

“When I go to the e-Albania website, I can’t find the option to register,” said Ivanov, who had previously worked in programming and so was not exactly an IT amateur. “The only registration offered is with their [Albanian] ID.” Then there’s the fact the Albanian site is only in Albanian.

“I didn’t get any response even though I sent a couple of inquiries,” Ivanov told BIRN. “In the end, I gave up.”

Six months since the system went live, there is no clear data in either Serbia, Albania or North Macedonia showing how many people have generated Open Balkan ID numbers or how many successfully found work in one of the other countries. What evidence there is suggests the uptake has been underwhelming.

Many e-government services have yet to be translated into the other languages of the Open Balkan initiative, and the ID system itself appears far from user-friendly.

“A lot of things need to be clicked in order to find a job as part of the Open Balkan initiative,” said Jelena Jevtovic, communications manager at the Serbian Association of Employers. “It would be good if the system was simpler.”

“We have no data at all about interest among people from North Macedonia and Albania in working in Serbia. Nor do we have data about interest among [Serbian] citizens to work there.”

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