The growth and development of transit migration along the Balkan route in 2015 and 2016 highlighted the major role Macedonia and Serbia played, not merely as the main countries of passage, but as important buffer areas within the framework of the European border regime.

This research paper first examines the development and transformations of Macedonian and Serbian national migration policies and legislation in the past two decades in the light of the EU accession process. It identifies the key historical and geopolitical factors that significantly shaped them, as well as the distinct strategies the two countries pursued in coping with often countervailing EU demands, local socio-political considerations and actual migration movements and practices. The paper proceeds to analyze the gradual establishment of a formalized corridor through the Balkans by tracing the ways in which Macedonia and Serbia strategically positioned themselves in how they governed the transit migration through their territory, dynamically shifting between humanitarianism and securitization throughout the time before the formalized corridor emerged, during its existence, in the process of its closure, and after it was shut down.