Balkans struggle with economic fallout from Greek collapse

As Greece and its eurozone creditors finally reached a deal for a third bailout for the beleaguered country, thousands of migrants from the country's Balkan neighbours who rely on Greece for temporary work, are returning home.

Countries such as Albania, Bulgaria and Georgia benefit significantly from Greece's economy, with huge numbers of migrant workers crossing into Greece in order to find temporary work and sending remittances back home to support their families.

However, workers are returning to their countries of origin in their thousands as Greek employers struggle to pay their wages due to the closure of the Greek banks and the capital controls imposed in the country.

Giorgos Triantafyllou, a research fellow for the independent Athens-based research institute ELIAMEP, told Newsweek that Greece is one of the most important trade partners of Albania and Bulgaria regarding imports and exports, and many migrants rely on Greece for jobs in agriculture, tourism and construction.

"Being the oldest EU member state in the Balkans, Greece has been a constant point of reference for the economies of the other Balkan countries for nearly 30 years now," he says.

Albania's economy is heavily dependent on money sent back from Greece, and as a result of the financial crisis there, the country's economy is feeling the effects. For the last 25 years, the money sent by the Albanians who lived and worked in Greece back to their families in Albania accounted for a considerable amount of Albania's annual GDP.

In 2007, just before the Greek economic crisis hit, Albanian migrants in Greece sent back to Albanian €952m. In 2014, this number dropped to €544m, and this figure is likely to continue to decrease, according to Triantafyllou.

Within the past year, Albanian fruit pickers have reported that their Greek employers have been unable to pay their wages for weeks on end. "The Greeks have no money, they are themselves in a crisis," one worker told Reuters. "They told us to come and work again in two weeks and get the money."

As of 2007, 600,000 Albanians worked temporarily in Greece. Yet since the financial crisis in 2008, more than 180,000 have returned home, according to the Albanian Centre for Competitiveness and International Trade.

The value of Albanian exports has decreased by 10.7% between 2008 and 2014, with Greece falling from Albania's second largest export market to its fifth.

Triantafyllou adds that the number of migrants travelling back to Albania is a "valid and existing fear" for the country, which already struggles with high levels of unemployment.

"The Albanian economy has its own severe problems, and the return of Albanians from Greece in large numbers is expected to put severe pressure on an already struggling economy - unemployment is currently the number one problem in Albania and the return of migrants from Greece it is expected to aggravate the problem," he says.

More Albanians are now seeking work in Germany instead. Around 16,000 Albanians sought asylum there in the first five months of this year, and there were 4,900 arrivals in May alone according to Reuters, a marked increased from 2014, when 8,133 Albanians sought asylum in the country.

Bulgarian politicians have also spoken out about their concerns about how Greece's ailing economy will affect their own. Foreign direct investment in Bulgaria from Greece declined by 7.6% between 2008 and 2014.

"The destabilising of Greece is bad news for us, as Greece is one of our main geopolitical and economic partners," Radan Kanev, a member of the governing coalition in Bulgaria's national assembly told the Wall Street Journal. "It will no doubt have economic repercussions for us."

Moreover, there are fears that Bulgaria's tourism industry will also suffer. Before the crisis hit, Greek tourists travelling to the country brought in in revenue of almost €1.5m per month, but that has since dropped to less than €100,000, according to Reuters.

It is a similar story in nearby Georgia. It's estimated that as many as 200,000 workers, mostly female, work in Greece, according to a recent dispatch by the broadcasting organisation Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, but many of these women are now returning home due to the financial strife in Greece.

Georgia's Economy and Sustainable Development Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili has said that remittances from Greece dropped by 18% in the first five months of 2015. His concerns were echoed by the head of Georgia's national bank, who said earlier this month that the loss of remittances from Georgian workers in Greece "will be especially painful from the social point of view."