Minister: Bosnia can't guarantee safety conditions for EU member states

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Most of today's meeting between the Croatian Interior and Bosnian Security minister dealt with the issue of illegal migrations and the two came to similar conclusions, Croatia's Davor Bozinovic said Monday, while Bosnia's Fahrudin Radoncic stressed that Bosnia cannot guarantee the same safety conditions for EU member states because of its agencies are stretched to capacity.

This isn't a refugee crisis any more, because we're seeing an increased number of migrants from Pakistan who want to live in the EU. We have a situation where they enter the EU via Greece and then come to us,” Fahrudin Radoncic said in Zagreb. “Bosnia can't guarantee the safety conditions for EU member states because our agencies are stretched to capacity. We got a large number of migrants whose identity is yet to be determined.”

He then asked Croatia to jointly start lobbying in the EU for the migrant crisis to start being viewed as a security crisis, rather than a humanitarian one. Radoncic argued that 93 percent of the total aid Bosnia receives from the EU is of humanitarian aspect, while only 7 refers to the security aspect of the crisis.

Croatia's Davor Bozinic said the two discussed all the relevant issues for the security of the two countries and agreed on certain mechanisms which will be implemented quickly.

“We heard some information which is interesting to us, to say the least, because Croatia now chairs the Council of Europe. As an EU member state, we are very interested in raising the issue of the migrant route spanning from Greece, arccos Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and then heading to other EU states,” Croatian Interior Minister said.

He noted that Croatia will also raise the issue on one of Council's sessions, emphasizing the issue of human smuggling.

“We can't let smugglers have better cooperation than we do, whose agencies are not cooperating on the same level as traffickers,” he noted.

When it comes to helping Bosnia, Bozinic said that after the Monday meeting, he will advocate for the EU funds to be redirected to strengthening its security capacities.