FM Kovač: Croatia will cooperate in preventing flood of refugees

(Hina) - Croatia cooperated very well with its neighbours and countries in the region in managing the migrant wave and has cooperation mechanisms that will prevent it from being flooded with refugees

(Hina) - Croatia cooperated very well with its neighbours and countries in the region in managing the migrant wave and has cooperation mechanisms that will prevent it from being flooded with refugees, Croatian Foreign and European Affairs Minister Miro Kovač said on Friday in Dubrovnik when asked whether he was familiar with the fact that Hungary was preparing to put up new fences on its borders.

In a brief statement to the press after a foreign policy discussion panel on global challenges at the Dubrovnik Forum, Croatia's foreign minister said that the Three Seas Initiative by would be very useful and that it would contribute to strengthening the European Union's cohesion, its defence, energy, security, migrant policies, and that countries that are not in the EU yet should be included too.

"That cooperation (Slovenia, Serbia, Macedonia) contributed to calming the (migrant) wave," Kovač told reporters, commenting on a possible scenario of a new refugee crisis in Croatia if the EU-Turkey agreement fails.

"This government established that mechanism," Kovač said.

He noted that it was important to act in those countries where crises were occurring, in Syria, Africa, and in that way prevent people from fleeing those countries.

They can't all come to the EU and we "have to be efficient in protecting the EU's external borders." and "we owe that to our citizens," Kovač concluded.

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