BELFAST, Northern Ireland — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is edging closer to a signature deal for a migrants’ return hub in the Western Balkans — and the price will be fresh confrontation with Russia.

Foreign ministers from Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Montenegro will gather in Hillsborough Castle, Northern Ireland, on Thursday as the U.K. convenes a summit aimed at integrating those countries more closely with other European allies and institutions.

It’s no surprise that Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will prioritize discussions about immigration as the British government tries desperately to tackle small boat crossings and bring down the number of illegal migrants.

This week’s summit is part of a diplomatic drive to secure an agreement for people trying to settle in the U.K. to be processed in another country.

Two government officials confirmed to POLITICO that migration hubs would be discussed informally at Hillsborough Castle, while stressing that nothing had been finalized. Any emerging plan could be signed off at a further meeting of regional leaders on Oct. 22.

Kosovo has many advantages in British eyes, as a country with a strong connection to the U.K. with leadership that wants to align more closely with Western nations. And — even more attractive to the cash-strapped U.K. — its primary motivation is not financial but strategic, as Pristina seeks to repel threats from both Serbia and Russia.

Prime destination

Kosovo has come into focus as a target for offshoring Britain’s asylum claims after a failed attempt by Starmer to woo Albania on a visit earlier this year. 

Andi Hoxhaj, lecturer in law at King’s College London, said: “Keir Starmer was the first sitting prime minister to visit Albania in 104 years of bilateral relations, and he wanted with the first visit to get a migration return deal. That’s wishful thinking, to put it mildly.”

Kosovo is seen as a good alternative partly because it is one of the main routes used by migrants on their way west, and in theory could stem the flow of illegal migration as well as having a deterrent effect. Nearly 22,000 migrants used the Western Balkans route to enter the EU last year, according to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Kosovan President Vjosa Osmani previously said that her country would be “open” to negotiating an arrangement to take Britain’s failed asylum-seekers.

Arminka Helic, a Conservative peer and former FCDO adviser who fled Bosnia for the U.K. in the 1990s, described the Kosovan administration “as forward-leaning and supportive of Western policies — kind of like a model country, if you want to put it that way.”

In addition, according to Helic, Kosovo does not want a purely transactional relationship of the type the previous Conservative government struck with Rwanda, but which failed to get off the ground. 

More valuable to them is support in resisting Serbia’s hostile diplomacy as it seeks to prevent other countries from recognizing Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, and seeing off Russia’s attempts to influence and destabilize the region.

A broken record

As appealing as a deal might be for Britain, it has yet to be hammered out — and regional analysts warn that any agreement on migration carries its own risks. 

“How can you address such a big issue with such an unstable region, particularly because that region is deeply entangled with malign Russian influence,” Helic observed. “I don’t think it can work.”

Further, she said, instability in the region could lead to more, rather than less, illegal migration.

And while the U.K. already places a great emphasis in talks with allies on countering Russian interference, it would have to answer some acute questions pretty soon — such as how to maintain the peacekeeping force on the Kosovan-Serbian border, which Russia wants to block.

There is also a certain weariness with Britain’s current approach on the world stage, as it seeks measures to tackle illegal migration in every possible international forum to the exclusion of other topics.

Ahead of the meeting Cooper underlined her priorities by announcing £10 million for programs to tackle people smuggling in the Western Balkans and a redeployment of FCDO staff to focus more officials on migration.

But as Hoxhaj put it: “There’s this feeling that this is not such a major political issue in our country, this is more sort of a U.K. issue, so why would we be willing to help out?”

A diplomat from one country attending the summit, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said Britain had a level of “fixation” with small boats in particular, which they found “difficult to understand.”

If sounding like a broken record does eventually deliver the U.K.’s sought-after migration deal, then Starmer may consider it a small price.