Croatia has emergency plan for possible refugee wave, says interior minister

Refugees' attempts to reach Europe "are certainly creating a crisis such as Europe hasn't seen since World War II," Ostojic told reporters after a government session.

 

He said the plan defined the actions of all segments of the state administration and tcoordination with the non-governmental sector and all who could help.

 

Ostojic criticised those saying that Croatia should do as Austria, Germany and Denmark, which introduced temporary border control. He said they did not know what they were talking about because those countries adopted decisions to that effect in line with the Schengen acquis. "How can Croatia activate that when we never deactivated it? Croatia has always had border control."

 

He said Croatia was in contact with its neighbours, reiterating that the system would be very quickly activated if refugees flooded Croatia.

 

So far, Croatia has not been a destination for refugees, but their arrival is possible after Hungary put up a fence on its border and punished those who damaged it or attempted to cross it, Ostojic said. "If there is a massive influx, a wave of thousands of refugees, that, of course, is the time when regular measures which the police are successfully implementing on the border can no longer be applied."

 

Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic told reporters before the government session that if a wave of refugees started crossing Croatia, the country could use the resources it used last year when the Slavonia region was flooded.

(Text: HINA)