Prime Minister informed MPs in Croatian parliament about European Council meetings in Tallinn and Brussels

With its aspiration to join the Schengen Area as soon as possible, to join the euro area and to actively participate in European cooperation initiatives, Croatia must use the current circumstances in the European Union to show where it wants to belong, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said in parliament on Wednesday.

He informed MPs and the public about European Council meetings in Tallinn on September 29 and Brussels on October 19 and 20.

He said the leaders of the member states stated in Tallinn that the migration pressure on Europe had decreased considerably, notably on the eastern Mediterranean route, but also in the central Mediterranean thanks to stronger European activity towards Libya, the main migrant route.

Plenkovic said it was crucial that all Council members agreed that it was necessary to intensify cooperation with African countries to help them establish national mechanisms for preventing illegal migration. The Croatian government decided to pay EUR 200,000 into the EU fund for Africa, he added.

The Council meetings also discussed the additional strengthening of the EU's external borders and adoption of additional measures within the Schengen acquis. Plenkovic said that for Croatia, as a country preparing for entering the Schengen Area, it was important that it had consumed 97% of the funds intended for that. He said additional effort would be made in 2018 so that Croatia could meet all the technical requirements by 2019 and be ready for the Council's political decision on its Schengen entry.

Speaking of migration, Plenkovic said 78 persons were relocated to Croatia, 60 from Greece and 18 from Italy, and that the government decided on October 5 to receive another 100 persons currently in Turkey in 2018.

The European Council also discussed security and defence matters. Plenkovic said Croatia made progress in preparing constant structured cooperation in defence and that tomorrow the government would adopt documents so that Croatia was one of 21 member states which wanted stronger defence cooperation, which would enable the EU "to better jointly deal with security threats." He said this was important also in the context of Croatia's National Security Strategy adopted before the summer and for Croatia's defence industry.

Plenkovic said the most interesting and most innovative part of the European Council meetings was President Donald Tusk's Leaders' Agenda, a road map of activities for European leaders from October to mid-2019, when European elections are due. He said the agenda's intention was for the Council to focus on practical solutions for EU citizens' real problems.

Plenkovic said recent political trends in Europe, such as European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker's address on the state of the EU, French President Emmanuel Macron's address on the EU's future, Brexit and the German election results, showed that in the years ahead Europe "will be in a tight spot between French enthusiasm and German realism." It is important "not to fall into the trap", he added.

He went on to say that big European countries were focused on internal matters and that it was important how small and medium countries would assert themselves. "That's why I firmly believe that such a circumstance is important for Croatia to show where it wants to be," he said, adding that Croatia's insisting on the Schengen Area and a discussion on a strategy for introducing the euro were very important in that respect.

"We need two big and broad frameworks which will give us a goal and an ambition for the future," Plenkovic said, adding that Croatia showed that it belonged to the EU also in initiatives such as the common defence policy and the aspiration to establish a European prosecutor's office.

He said European institutions had recognised Croatia's work on that front, as evidenced by the fact that it was invited to attend an upcoming euro area summit for the first time.

 

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