Croatian government decided on Thursday to approve the taking in of another 150 refugees this year under the EU relocation and resettlement scheme, which will apply to persons who are non-EU nationals or hold no citizenship at all, and who are deemed to qualify for international protection.

“By implementing the EU relocation programme, the government is trying to ensure that people… in need of international protection can legally arrive to the EU, to an extent that is sustainable for Croatia. In addition, we want to avoid exploitation or deaths caused by illegal arrivals and trafficking,” Interior Minister, Davor Bozinovic, told reporters.

Croatia had first agreed to take in incoming refugees in July 2015 during the peak of the migrant crisis, when it accepted 152 Syrians fleeing the civil war in their country.

A second decision, on the resettlement of another 100 persons, had been adopted in October 2017, Bozinovic said on Thursday, adding that preparations were now under way on the relocation of Syrian nationals currently housed in refugee camps in Turkey to Croatia.

During the 2015 crisis, in which more than a million migrants and refugees from North Africa and the Middle East arrived to Europe, thousands of those who travelled the so-called Balkan route from Greece through Serbia and Hungary were redirected towards Croatia after Hungary’s PM Viktor Orban decided to close Hungary’s borders.

Croatia was largely a transit country for migrants and refugees who hoped to go on westwards and reach wealthier western European countries like Germany, with very few formally filing for asylum in the country.

The issue of re-distributing hundreds of thousands of incoming asylum seekers soon led to deep internal divisions within the EU, with countries which bore the brunt of the influx of people, such as Italy, pressing for the reform of the Dublin Agreement, which says that asylum seekers coming into the EU are the sole responsibility of the first EU country they arrive to.

This proposal, however, was vehemently opposed by several eastern European countries such as Poland and Hungary, where nationalist governments in power have capitalised on anti-immigration fears in recent years.

In the meantime, the EU had signed an agreement with Turkey which agreed to house and register refugees in Turkey before they reach Europe, in exchange for EU funding. Once there, the refugees are processed and wait to be taken in by one of the EU countries who agree to the resettlement plan.

“Croatia made this decision based on the capacity available, and in order to meet its obligations stemming from European and international documents on refugees… and also, taking into account the fact that, as an EU member state, Croatia supports the principle of solidarity and equal sharing of responsibility,” Bozinovic told reporters.

Aslyum seekers who arrive to Croatia wait for their requests to be approved or denied at one of only two such centres in the country, one larger in the capital city of Zagreb and another smaller one in the town of Kutina, which have a combined capacity for 700 people.

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