(Hina) - Croatia can cope with the situation in the flooded areas alone in terms of immediate intervention, which is why it has not asked the European Union for assistance, but it will need it for cleanup operations, Foreign Minister Vesna Pusić said on Monday.
Croatia will need assistance to help people return to their villages and for road, water supply, sewerage, and power supply restoration, Pusić said in Brussels after discussing this with Kristalina Georgieva, the European commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis response.
Pusić said Croatia responded to the requests for help from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, which requested assistance in dealing with the immediate danger to people through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.
Sixteen member states have offered their help and Georgieva thanked them for the swift and effective help.
We are proud that Europe has come to rescue people. We received the requests on Thursday and the first teams were there already on Friday, saving lives. We offered more than was requested, she said, adding that she was about to visit Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia.
Georgieva said there was serious cause for concern, not just because of the current catastrophic floods, but also for the future, because damage from natural disasters increased four times over the past three decades, amounting to US$ 50 billion in the 1980s and $200 billion now.
The EU is willing to work on that and encourage investments to increase the resistance to such situations. She said floods would be increasingly frequent and worse because of climate change.
As a member state, Croatia is entitled to aid from the European Solidarity Fund to deal with the consequences of flooding. As an EU accession candidate, Serbia can request the aid together with neighbouring Croatia.
Bosnia has no access to the Fund because it is not an accession candidate but can get aid from the IPA pre-accession fund, Georgieva said.