Europe will have to do more about resolving the conflicts and finding peaceful solutions in its neighbourhood, Croatian Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said on Wednesday while visiting the Turkish-Syrian border and two camps in which Turkey has taken in some of the nearly four million Syrian refugees fleeing from conflicts in their country.

“In future Europe, will have to do more about solving conflicts, about finding peace agreements, because we have seen how much Europe is exposed if its immediate neighbourhood is… destabilised. Unless the situation here is under control, in Europe we can expect various events which we don’t want to see,” Bozinovic told Croatian reporters at a Turkish-Syrian border crossing near Kilis, Turkey.

He said Europe must utilise the strength it “realistically has” given that, economically, it is one of the most developed parts of the world.

“Europe also has the resources. It’s just a matter of agreeing on their use and of how much European goals, not just the narrow national ones, come first to all stakeholders in Europe,” he added.

Bozinovic visited the two refugee camps outside Nizip and Kilis, each accommodating approximately 4,000 people, and held talks with camp administrators and refugees.

After visiting the refugee camps, Bozinovic said that Turkey had invested a lot of effort to accommodate almost four million people who fled Syria.

“The logistical support is at a very high level. There are schools, religious facilities, different courses are being organised,” he said, adding that more than 5,000 children were born in the past few years in the two camps he visited.

He said the lasting solution was for the people to return to their homes and that he hoped “reason will prevail and that the EU will play a stronger part.”

Most of refugees the Croatian media talked to there said they wanted to go back to Syria, but have no means to do that.

“If Europe doesn’t play a strong, active role in conflict prevention, we will deal with such crises in future too and that’s in nobody’s interest,” he said.

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