Gallup: Albania among more friendly countries for accepting migrants

Many countries, on the front line of the immigrant crisis in Europe, are among the less inclined countries to accept immigrants, according to the latest Index from Gallup “Migrant Access Index”.

Nine of the 10 countries worth 2.39 or lower (from possible 9.0) are former Soviet bloc countries with most of the countries located along the Balkan route that once directed asylum seekers from Greece to Germany. Israel, which has dealt with its influx of asylum seekers from Africa in the last decade, is the only non-European country with low results. Gallup created the Emigrants' Accession Index to assess people's acceptance of immigrants, based on the increasing scales of personal proximity. The index is based on three questions Gallup has asked in 138 countries over two years, in 2016 and 2017.

The response “a good thing” is worth three points, a voluntary response of “varet” or “does not know” is worth a point and “bad” is worth zero. The index is a sum of scores for all three questions, with a maximum score of 9.0 (all three are good things) and a minimum score of zero (the three are bad things).

The result of the World's Accession Index is 5,29. Seventy-seven countries mark more than average, while 61 points are lower. A global majority (54%) says immigrants living in their countries are a good thing. Less than half but still half to 50% say a neighbouring immigrant is a good thing and 44% say that an immigrant marrying a relative is a good thing.

According to the index, Albania, with a score of 7.22 points, ranks in countries that are keen to accept migrants. According to recently made public rankings, the less friendly states are just some of our Balkan neighbours, Macedonia with 1.47 points, Montenegro with 1.63 points, Serbia with 1.80 points. While more inclined to accept migrants, according to the Gallup index, there are 826-point Iceland, New Zealand with 8.25 points and Rwanda with 8.16 points.