FM Pusić: Croatia against fences on borders

(Hina) - Croatia is against erecting walls on borders, Foreign Minister Vesna Pusić said in Luxembourg on Saturday, responding to Hungary's announcement of the possibility of putting up a fence on the Croatian border if migrants started coming to Hungary from Croatia

(Hina) - Croatia is against erecting walls on borders, Foreign Minister Vesna Pusić said in Luxembourg on Saturday, responding to Hungary's announcement of the possibility of putting up a fence on the Croatian border if migrants started coming to Hungary from Croatia.

She was speaking to the press, asked to comment on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's announcement, after a two-day informal meeting of European Union foreign ministers which was dominated by the migrant crisis.

"We are absolutely against putting up wire. Every country has the right to decide as it wants and close itself if it wants to, but Croatia certainly won't close itself in wire. As for Hungary's announcement, as I understand it, this is just an idea for now which would be effected if migrants started crossing (the Croatian-Hungarian) border too, which isn't on the agenda now," Pusić said.

The EU is trying to agree a comprehensive approach to the migrant crisis which would include close cooperation with EU membership candidates such as Turkey, Macedonia and Serbia, she added.

"One should distinguish between transit countries, which refugees are only passing through, and the refugees' final goal, because many of them wish to get to Germany, Sweden and other Scandinavian countries. Regardless of the refugee crisis in Hungary and some other countries, they are not the countries in which the refugees wish to stay, and the EU will have to tackle this problem and put it on the agenda."

She said the Luxembourg meeting tried to establish to what extent the current crisis was about economic migrants and to what about refugees. She said the prevalent opinion among the foreign ministers was that Europe was primarily hit by a refugee crisis.

Pusić said Croatia was doing its part, such as sending two ships rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean, and that it was willing to take 550 refugees initially, which she said was more than it should given its size and economy.  "However, the fact is that a large number of people don't see many EU member states as their final destination, don't see their future there, but wish to get to a few countries, three or four. The question now is how to share the responsibility in this context."

She said Germany, Italy and France had offered a platform that was acceptable to Croatia and which would be the first step in developing a comprehensive refugee policy.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, France's Laurent Fabius and Italy's Paolo Gentiloni sent a letter this week to EU Foreign Affairs High Representative Federica Mogherini, outlining ideas on how to tackle the migrant crisis.

They advocate a more effective asylum system and creating a system for the integrated management of the EU's outside borders. They also seek more solidarity between member states and a more equitable sharing of the brunt of the crisis.

The European Commission has announced that it will propose on Wednesday a scheme for the relocation of another 120,000 migrants, currently in Greece, Hungary and Italy, across the member states, whose interior ministers will discuss it on September 14.

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said today that he did not like discussions on quotas, either voluntary or binding, and that in this crisis one should talk about sharing the burden. He said the migrant crisis should be solved outside Europe, but that at this moment there were many refugees in Europe who were protected under the Geneva Convention and that they could not all stay in one country.

The European Council should come up with the model for providing for refugees and migrants, but a final agreement is far off given that refugees, when they are given asylum status, have some freedom of movement and, notably within the Schengen system, the possibility to choose the countries they wish to go to, Pusić said.

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