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Croatia and Bavaria for enhanced protection of the EU’s external borders

by AI | 30.Aug 2024 | Europe in brief AI

The Ministers of Internal Affairs of Croatia and the German federal state of Bavaria agree on the need for better protection of external borders. Candidate countries should also contribute to the fight against illegal migration.

Zagreb, 24.10.2019 - Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Davor Božinović and State Minister of the Interior, Sports and Integration of the Free State of Bavaria Joachim Herrmann held a press conference after a bilateral meeting. In the picture, ministers Hermann and Božinović. photo HINA/ Damir SENČAR/ ds

MUENCHEN – Bavarian and Croatian interior ministers Joachim Herrmann and Davor Božinović concluded during their meeting in Munich on Tuesday that the protection of the external borders of the European Union should be strengthened to reduce illegal migration.

“We would have much fewer problems with illegal migration if all the member states of the European Union guarded the external borders as well as Croatia does,” said the Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann (Christian Social Union CSU) at a joint press conference with Davor Božinović in Munich.

Herrmann explained that after the agreement with Serbia, the Hungarian-Serbian border is “intensively guarded,” which shifted the route of migrants through Bosnia and Herzegovina. “This has increased the pressure on Croatia, through which illegal migrants are now trying to enter the European Union,” said Herrmann.

The Bavarian interior minister, who has, as he said, regularly met with Božinović since 2017, also pointed to the agreement on refugees reached at the EU level earlier this year and said that this agreement must be implemented.

“My Croatian colleague and I believe that an urgent change in attitude towards illegal migration is needed in the European Union, and an indispensable part of that process is effective border protection. I am happy that Minister Božinović today promised that Croatia will continue to intensively protect its external border,” said Herrmann.

Božinović said that Croatia has the longest external border of all the member states of the Schengen area and thanked Germany, especially Bavaria, for their support in the process of Croatia’s entry into the Schengen area.

He added that Croatia is aware that the European Union has problems with illegal migrations. “All of us in the European Union, including in Croatia, have many foreign workers who come to work and live in our countries, and this legal model is the model we would like to become the only model of migration to the EU. Everything outside this framework, apart from some humanitarian cases which are fewer than before, is something we unfortunately have to deal with,” said Božinović.

The Croatian minister said that it would be good for the countries that are candidates for EU membership to be made aware of the importance of border protection against illegal migrations. “We should not miss pointing out to them that the European Union expects their full cooperation when it comes to preventing illegal border crossings,” concluded Božinović. (August 29, 2024)