President Milanović: Integration of Bosna and Herzegovina into the EU is the only way to solve the migration issue
“Eight years have passed since the large migrant wave. My position, my approach from back then is known to everyone and I would repeat it. Now it is starting to be misused and the problem is in the conduct and implementation of it by, above all, Bosnia and Herzegovina. I have nothing to hold against the Slovenes; we would probably do the same. Our police are doing what they can. They cannot and must not do more than that. They constantly criticize them for overstepping their authority; I don’t think they are doing that. They are protecting the state border. Now we see that there is no Europe without borders. There is a Europe without border checks, and then they are introduced again. The border is not a joke, the Croatian police are doing what they can,” said the President of the Republic Zoran Milanović in his comments on the new measures, i.e. the police checkpoints set up by Slovenia along the border with Croatia due to illegal crossings by migrants.
The President believes that Slovenia is doing this for its internal public, noting that he understands this, but that there is also a different solution to the problem of migrants coming from BiH. “I’ll tell you what to do. Bosnia and Herzegovina is the problem because it doesn’t function, not because there is some secret plan to flood Europe with millions of migrants. The only way to solve this is for BiH to integrate into the EU as soon as possible. Bosnia and Herzegovina is treated as a colony. They are not allowed to breathe, one party is criticized, then another. Let’s try to incorporate them a little deeper into the EU. This is important to Croatia because Bosnia and Herzegovina is in some way “in the belly” of Croatia, but it is not Croatia. Let’s try to integrate them. If Ukraine can be a candidate, then BiH should already have been in the EU,” said President Milanović, adding that many Croats live in BiH.
Reporters asked President Milanović how he viewed the arrest warrants from Greece for ten more Croatian fans. “I look at it from the point of view of the law of war; they took people hostage. I said on the 12th of August, before that deadline had expired, that they took people hostage. And now they want more. When you give in, that’s what you have,” he replied. In his opinion, the entire European arrest warrant system relies on trust and on the premise that we are all the same, “but then you realize that some abuse it.” “It doesn’t end there, I expect it to continue. If, as I feared, they keep those hundred people and not a single Greek, that is the application of the law of war. They took people hostage. What happens next? They go on, because they see that they can. If I were leading the government, it would be different,” President Milanović told the press.