GeoJournal 50: 249–253, 2000.© 2001Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Cross-border movement and the dynamics of transition processes inSoutheastern Europe

Derek HallDepartment of Leisure & Tourism Management, Scottish Agricultural College, Auchincruive, Ayr KA6 5HW, U.K.

Received 16 June 2000; accepted 3 August 2000

Key words:cross-border activity, integration, migration, mobility, nationalism, post-communism, refugees, southeasternEurope, tourism, trading

Abstract

This paper attempts to provide an evaluation of cross-border movement - short-term, long-term and permanent - in south-eastern Europe, identifying the functions of such movement in relation to ongoing restructuring processes. It also suggestsa range of theoretical frameworks appropriate for further research in this area. While refugee flight and permanent displace-ment have resulted from some of the more pernicious and explicit processes of reinvigorated nationalism in the region,patterns of petty and larger scale trading, labour and education migration, leisure mobility and tourism, better reflect thedifferential impact of local, regional and global push and pull factors and the new configurations of national boundaries andneighbourly relations.

Introduction: Place and process

Cross-border mobility, as expressed in temporary andpermanent migration, is an important element of post-communist restructuring in Central and Eastern Europe(CEE). It reflects forces of both integration (tourism, labourmigration and shopping) and disintegration, or at least dislo-cation: refugee flight and the need for informal petty tradingand exchange. For southeastern Europe (SEE), the focus ofthis paper, it is likely to reflect the latter as much as theformer. As is well known, compared to Central Europe (CE),the postcommunist experience of SEE has been one of eco-nomic and political uncertainty, conflict and fragmentation.Despite the importance of this topic, there has been rela-tively little systematic detailed research on spatial mobilityprocesses, whether migration (e.g. Morokvasic, 1996; Wal-lace et al., 1996) or localised cross-border activity (Böröcz,1996; Iglicka, 1998) within CEE generally, such that bothappropriate general analytical frameworks and specific casestudy exemplification are largely absent from the literature.

Yet the specific national circumstances and relative eco-nomic and demographic positions of neighbouring countriescan differ dramatically even within SEE, such local geogra-phies determining particular mobility characteristics andborder region impacts, including questions of regional in-tegration (Kratke, 1998). Movements between Albania andGreece in the first half of the 1990s, for example, werecharacterised by three types of flows which combined toproduce processes of cross-border mobility unique to theAlbanian-Greek border: (a) Albanian labour migrants flee-ing deteriorating conditions in their own country and seekingwork in Greece: with a ‘Western’ advanced economy (com-

pared to the lagging and disrupted conditions of formerYugoslavian neighbours) and a common land border (un-like Italy), Greece was the key target and major recipient ofAlbanian labour migrants, both legal and illegal; (b) ethnicGreeks living in southern Albania taking the first opportu-nity in half a century to either permanently leave Albania orto visit relatives in Greece on a temporary basis: althoughAthens and Tirana had always disagreed over the numbersand treatment of the ethnic Greek minority, it was concen-trated in southern Albania (northern Epirus to Greeks); and(c) newly privatised Albanian farmers exchanging livestockacross the border for long-denied consumer goods (Hall,1996).

Types of cross-border mobility

International tourism

In 1997 48% of international tourism arrivals in CEE werefrom other countries within the region, compared with 61%in 1987 (WTO, 1998a, 1998b; Hall, 1991). Such touriststend to be low spending and relatively short stayers. This isreinforced by the mode of their mobility: the vast majorityof the region’s tourists cross borders by road, a significantnumber are VFR (visiting friends and relatives) tourists, andmany others are likely to be circuit tourists (i.e. passingthrough more than one country), although few data existon these latter two phenomena. Partly as a consequenceof these structural characteristics, while in 1997 CEE washost to 23.2% of all international tourist arrivals in Europe,only 12.9% of the continent’s receipts were generated here.The sector’s financial performance thus appears to be only

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around half what might be expected given the level of ar-rivals. This has clear regional economic significance andreflects the relative role of cross-border activity in the widercontext of what is understood to be global tourism. Therehas been a rejuvenation of mass tourism demand from themore advanced CE states and from Russia. This has beensignificant, for example, in assisting the rehabilitation of thepost-Yugoslav war Dalmatian coast, where Czechs and Slo-vaks represent a major international tourist market (Jordan,1998). But again this rejuvenation process is variable withinand between countries, and represents for some regions analmost paradoxical challenge at a time when they are pursu-ing a process of tourism restructuring to respond to westernniche demands by seeking to promote higher value marketsegmentation and product differentiation.

Cross-border petty trading and shopping

Cross-border petty traders may be involved in buying andselling on both sides of the border, such that in SEE pettytrading and shopping pursuits may tend to merge withingrey, not necessarily legal areas of activity. Together withlocal cross-border travel to purchase services ranging fromdentistry to prostitution, such patterns of mobility reflectpersisting differences in costs and availability of goods andservices, and relative currency values, across borders. This‘bazaar capitalism’ (Smith, 1997), which reinforces localinformal economies and particularises border localities, isa strong symbol of postcommunist uneven development,albeit a regional characteristic that actually developed inthe later years of communism. Indicating the growth of anintricate web of linkages and networks on both sides of bor-ders, such mobility experiences have expanded dramaticallyacross CEE as a whole. For example, while the Russian-Finnish border crossing checkpoint of Nuijamaa recorded200,000 crossings in 1990, in 1996 the figure was 1.16 mln;predominantly Russians on shopping expeditions (Barber,1997).

Labour migration

Substantial labour migration took place from Yugoslavia toWestern Europe from the mid-1960s, and this was accompa-nied by flows from Greece and Turkey (Castles and Kosack,1985; Salt and Ford, 1993). For the other states of the re-gion, international labour mobility tended to take place ona planned basis between CMEA member countries. UnlikeYugoslavia, none officially recorded or admitted to the exis-tence of unemployment, and underemployment, which wasrife in the public sector, had few exogenous safety valvesowing to relatively closed borders, and tended to be divertedinto the grey economy of second, third and fourth jobs. Since1989, labour migration from SEE has been difficult to char-acterise given the increasing diversity of individual nationalcircumstances. Longer distance migration to Western Eu-rope and the Middle East has been complemented by more‘localised’ movement into the relatively more stable andprosperous societies of CE, such that the latter has tendedto enjoy net immigration while SEE would appear to have

experienced net emigration. Additionally, labour migrantsfrom the region, and indeed from outside it, pass throughthird countries within the region while in transit, therebyswelling recorded cross-border movements. Illegal activityin this respect has been notable, with mafia elements par-ticularly in Albania providing a springboard for economicmigrants from SEE and Asia to enter Western Europe, rais-ing questions of the need for a ‘buffer zone’ around theSchengen countries (Collinson, 1996). Some cross-bordercommuting is undertaken in SEE, but this is currently morecharacteristic of CE.

Refugee flight

Post-communist conflict and upheaval in the Balkans haveresulted in the refugee flight of several million people, oftentravelling only short distances, across front-lines or militaryterritorial boundaries rather than necessarily state borders(Black and Robinson, 1993). However, the role of neigh-bouring countries as havens, as in the case of Hungary inrelation to the Yugoslav wars, has been documented (Dings-dale, 1996). Full-scale war, political and military terror,explicit and implicit threat have all played a part in Balkanrefugee mobility patterns. For example, 200,000 Koso-var refugees moved into Albania between 1991 and 1994even before the recent level of Serb pressure was placedupon them (Hall, 1996). Research on the socially exclusivenature and consequences of conflict and post-communist Eu-rope is badly needed (Leontidou and Afouxenidis, 1999,pp. 266–7): the empirical material for which is all too readilyapparent.

Methodological problems

A number of methodological - empirical primary and sec-ondary data - problems confront any attempt to evaluatecross-border activity in SEE. Gaining access to official datafrom particular border posts may be difficult, if not impos-sible. Where available, such data may be inaccurate andunreliable. Where separate posts at the same crossing ex-ist for both neighbouring countries, data may be availablefrom one but not the other, may be available from both butcollected and classified in a different way or may simply bediscrepant. Further, official categories used may not reflectthe real intent of travellers, and much illicit movement mayanyway avoid border posts completely. Personal observationand interview, even where allowed by authorities in still of-ten sensitive state areas, can at best provide sample data fromwhich to extrapolate projected estimates.

For tourism statistical data purposes, as collected andcollated by the World Tourism Organization (WTO), inter-national visitor and tourist arrivals may be recorded in anumber of different ways. For several countries of SEE ar-rivals are recorded as tourists registered in hotels (Albania,Turkey, Yugoslavia) or in all accommodation where recordsare kept (Croatia, Slovenia, FYR Macedonia, Turkey, Yu-goslavia). None record data in the form of internationaltourist arrivals at frontiers, but Bulgaria, Romania and

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Turkey provide data for the WTO on international visitorarrivals at frontiers. While the WTO’s definition of visitorarrivals excludes labour migrants coming to work in that par-ticular country, it may implicitly include a range of travellers- labour migrants in transit, cross-border petty- traders etc -which are not embraced in the data of arrivals at accommo-dation. Through cross-referencing different countries’ datait is just possible, therefore, in a rather lateral way, to gainsome insight into the nature of SEE’s cross-border travellers.To take just one example: in 1996 Bulgaria had 6.8mln vis-itor arrivals at frontiers (WTO, 1998b, pp. 239–40). Overfour million of these were day visitors and only about 25%of the total were actually holiday tourists (WTO, 1998a,p. 73). That 84% of Bulgaria’s visitors are from neighbour-ing countries suggests significant local cross-border activity.Visitors’ average length of stay within the country is a usefulindicator of the likely major type of cross-border activity,and Table 1 suggests likely cross-border characteristics ofparticular national groups arriving in Bulgaria in 1996.

Theoretical frameworks

Mobility transition

Can the function and scale of cross-border mobility beconceptualised to reflect the nature and process of post-communist restructuring? Certainly the mobility transition,conceptualised by Zelinsky (1971), and adapted by Fuchsand Demko (1978) to emphasise the mobility effects of theregion’s underurbanisation under communism, offers pos-sibilities for post-communist conceptual refinement. Whilepatterns of both rejuvenated mass tourism from within CEEand segmented niche tourism from the West can be seen toreflect the dynamics of both regional and European marketand product restructuring (Hall, 1998), to what extent canpatterns of international labour migration and cross-borderpetty trading be accommodated in the conceptualisation ofsystemic transformation?

Transition from supercentralisation

Popescu (1993) argued that the ‘supercentralised’ state(specifically Romania, but applicable to other SEE coun-tries such as Albania) experienced a period of upheaval,instability and readjustment before embarking on transition.Although this model was put forward specifically in relationto a conceptualisation of post-communist industrial develop-ment, a mobility component can be accommodated withinit. For example, it may be hypothesised that cross-borderpetty trading will be intense on both sides of a border whererelease from the confines of supercentralism by one statehas recently taken place. This model implicitly posits that‘transition’ is neither linear nor similarly experienced in allpostcommunist societies.

Redundancy of human capital

The human capital generated by state socialism has provedlargely inappropriate for post-communist conditions (Ve-cernik, 1992), such that a redundancy of human capital(Szivas and Riley, 1997) reflects the ‘dislocation’ of peoplebeing separated from their previously accumulated educa-tion and experience. This dislocation has taken place ata societal level, and the accompanying restructuring hasrequired profound psychological readjustment as well aseconomic change. The ‘invisible instrumentalism’ of ‘grey’and informal (cross-border) trading may be as much a psy-chological retreat for some as an economic necessity. Adisruption of the patterns of demand for labour producesa change in the value of human capital which in turn isreflected in unusual patterns of labour mobility occurringduring a ‘transition’ period over a number of years. It ispossible to suggest that industries which are expanding andwhich have low requirements in terms of human capital, willbe a destination for those who are so ‘dislocated’. Expandingeconomic activity with low skill requirements becomes therecipient of ‘refugees’ from other sectors that are contract-ing or have collapsed. In these circumstances, the normalrelationship in which geographical mobility engenders oc-cupation mobility is likely to be exaggerated (Schroeder,1976), a pattern characteristic of parts of SEE in the 1990s.

Path dependency

Path dependency, which has been applied to analyses ofeconomic restructuring in CEE (Stark, 1992), suggests thatparticular variables play a crucial role in facilitating certainoutcomes while constraining others (Meurs and Begg, 1998,p.244). This does not imply a deterministic interpretation:The year 1989 saw a plurality of transitions with diversepaths to different types of political institutions(Stark andBruszt, 1998, p. 17). But it views actors as being constrainedby, for example, institutional resources or past nomenklaturanetwork systems, which constrain some fields of actionwhile favouring the selection of others (Stark, 1994, p. 117).For example, Grabher and Stark (1997) highlight the impor-tance of state socialist legacies to block and support elementsof post-communist restructuring, a feature notable in SEE,where there has often been no decisive break with the past,with the result that hybrid political economies have emerged.State socialist economic and political actors have been em-bedded in social ties and networks reorganised to functionunder new conditions (which may be stable or uncertain):relationships with people in power established under statesocialism have therefore remained an important asset. Thoseindividuals within society left without such connections inthe depressed economic conditions of post-communist SEEmay be forced to seek trade and employment across borders.Under these conditions, path dependency can emphasisethe importance of localities, such as border areas, as sitesof economic action, and suggests the multiplicity of avail-able pathways away from state socialism, and implicitlythe spatial patterns and processes to emerge from thosepathways.

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Table 1. Bulgaria 1996: International visitor arrivals

Source Country Number Percent of Av length Likely major

mln arrivals stay days cross-border

characteristics

FSU 1.42 20.8 1.47 A

Romania 1.28 18.8 <0.01 B

Yugoslavia 1.23 18.1 0.06 B

Turkey 1.19 17.4 0.03 C

Poland 0.08 1.2 2.60 D

UK 0.04 0.6 12.93 E

Germany 0.12 1.8 15.45 F

Sweden 0.01 0.2 16.01 F

A mixed petty trading, ‘tourism’

B petty trading/shopping

C petty trading+ transit labour migration

D circuit tourism

E pleasure tourism

F pleasure/retirement tourism

Source: WTO, 1998a; author’s interpretations.

New world disorder distortions

Military conflict, tension and its international outcomes,such as the UN sanctions imposed against Serbia, serveto distort international mobility, both spatially and struc-turally, in generating efforts to fulfil unmet needs causedby distorted economic and political conditions. Thus, tothe south-east of Serbia, the smuggling of goods across theAlbanian border into Kosovo and Montenegro, ostensiblyto assist the ethnic Albanian populations there during theperiod of sanctions against Serbia in the mid-1990s, both as-sisted the local economies of such border areas but also actedas the incubator of organised crime, filling an occupationalvacuum in often impoverished areas partly depopulated bypostcommunist rural to urban and interregional migration(Hall, 1996). By contrast, on the north-western periphery ofSerbia, in 1998 Tesco (UK) opened its biggest ever hyper-market in the south-eastern Hungarian town of Szeged, just30 km from the Serbian border. Existing cross-border linkswith the Yugoslav market have proved highly lucrative forthe local Hungarian border economy in recent years. Serbianshoppers who come to the town tend to have relatively moredisposable income than most local Hungarians. While themajority come to buy essentials such as food and fertilis-ers, there is also significant demand for luxury items: theexpensive underwear designer Palmers (Austria) has a shopin Szeged, but none in Budapest, and claims that half ofits customers are Serbian. Benetton’s (Italy) local outlet isalso popular with Serbs. Metro (Swiss), Penny Market, Ten-gelmann (both German) and Spar (Austria) also establishedthemselves in Szeged in the mid-1990s (Roe, 1998b).

Conclusions: Likely change

The dynamics of cross-border activity within South-easternEurope in the short- to medium-term are likely to reflect

four sets of processes. First, the next round of accessionto the EU is likely to reduce local cross-border movementsignificantly in the short term between Central Europe andSEE. For example, once Hungary joins the EU it is likelyto be much more difficult for Serbs, Croats and Romaniansto shop in Hungary. Visa restrictions and extra paymentswill probably be introduced for those on the wrong side ofthe border. Since Austria joined the EU, some of Tesco’ssmaller stores in the northwest of the country have regis-tered a 30% reduction in turnover apparently partly due tothis factor (Roe, 1998b). Second, on the matter of virtualshopping, Hungary is the first CEE country where Internetretailing techniques are being strongly promoted. There arean estimated 40,000-50,000 home Internet users in Hungary- a survey of 8,000 of them by the Hungarian computer com-pany ISYS, found that 12% had purchased products on theInternet. IKEA has been developing its Hungarian- languageweb page in order to be able to offer virtual shopping inthe future. A virtual shopping mall is being launched jointlyby IBM (US) and Italian-owned Inter-Europa Bank. It willoperate through IBM’s Secure Electronic Transaction pro-gramme, which is claimed to be safer than using a card overthe shop counter (Roe, 1998a). While such developmentspresume access both to investment capital and technology,their longer term impact should reduce the need for more for-malised forms of cross-border shopping, particularly whensignificant discounts can be gained through internet pur-chase. Such developments will doubtless take longer to gainmomentum within SEE and will have differentiated spatialimpacts.

Thirdly, touching on changing ‘new world disorder’, aspolitical and economic change proceeds and continues toconfound any misplaced notion of regional ‘linear’ tran-sition, so mobility patterns will reflect the relative rela-tionships between, and opportunity costs of, neighbouringcountries and sub-regions. Thus, in time, it may be ex-pected that flows across the Croatian-Serbian border will

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return to relative ‘normality’ with, for example, tourists fromSerbia beginning to return to Adriatic coast resorts, whileCroats, Bosnians and Macedonians visit Belgrade for shop-ping and other leisure activities. Finally, as global tourismprocesses proceed, not only is the scale of cross-bordertourism likely to increase, but new patterns of outward anddomestic tourism, as well as new forms of inbound nichesegmentation, will take place, further complicating nationaland regional mobility patterns.

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