Law professor Ivan Kopric, who has recently presented findings of a study about the capacities of Croatian municipalities and towns to accept migrants, has said that less than 5 percent of units of local self-government have immigrants who have arrived since 2015 in Croatia.

Commenting on the findings at a round table discussion on challenges of migrations organised by the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU), Kopric, who is a professor at Zagreb Law School, said that the the study, conducted by the Institute of Public Administration, involved 62 mayors of municipalities and towns with more than 10,000 residents.

“Less than 5 percent of those communities have immigrants who have arrived since 2015, while 90 percent communities had experiences with refugees and displaced people in the 1990s,” he said.

Those local communities are willing to take in immigrant Croats from abroad, and then immigrants from western Europe, Scandinavia, Canada, the USA and Croatia’s neighbouring countries.

As many as 77 percent of respondents reject the claim about unacceptable multiculturality, and 66 percentreject a claim about immigration not being welcome.

However, 68 percent of respondents believe that an influx of immigrants may cause social problems, and 60 percent say that the capacity of local institutions and utilities such as pre-school institutions, schools, healthcare centres are insufficient for the integration of migrants, and 70 percent of them will like to transfer this job to nongovernmental organisations, according to Kopric’s presentation.

The professor says that the mayors covered by the poll have a realistic insight in the risks and potential advantages of immigration.