Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said on Thursday an investigation was launched to see who was involved in an incident of violence against migrants on the border, recorded on video, adding that "the Croatian police did not tolerate the overstepping of authority, of which there must be proof," state agency Hina said.

RTL television on Wednesday showed video footage of men wearing ski masks pushing back migrants from Croatia across a backwater of the Korana river, hitting them with batons such as those used by Croatian riot police. Some of the men also wore vests like those of riot police.

“An expert team is already in the field and has the task to establish what happened, who was involved and where it happened,” Bozinovic told the press when asked to comment on the footage, shown in a number of countries yesterday.

As for cases of overstepping authority, he said the ministry punished 400 of its personnel every year for that. “We’ll continue to take such action because it’s the only right thing to do and in line with the law.”

He said that past reactions to such reports, even by foreign media, were in the form of a statement containing one’s own opinion of what might have happened.

No place for violence in Croatian police

“When it comes to any kind of overstepping of authority, not to say violence, there’s no place for that in the Croatian police. They are one of those institutions that always, when they have proof and when a good investigation is done, take action and punish their members,” Bozinovic said.

The government, the Interior Ministry and the Police Directorate don’t tolerate any overstepping of authority, he added. “In this case, as before, we will establish what happened, who was involved, where it happened, and then decide on the next steps.”

Croatian police faced with migrant pressure for years

Bozinovic said the Croatian police were not on the EU’s external border out of choice but because they had been faced with migrant pressure for years and were protecting the border from illegal entry into Croatia and the EU.

He said he was going to Luxembourg today for talks on Friday on new control rules on the EU’s external borders.

He said there was no agreement among the members states on that control. Some, like Lithuania, are for totally closing Europe to migrants and erecting barriers on all external borders, while others are for opening centers on the external borders where decisions would be made about what to do with migrants, he added.

Croatia not for putting up wire fences, notably along the Bosnian border

“We are not for putting up wire fences, notably along the Bosnia and Herzegovina border,” Bozinovic said, adding that it was important to establish if migrants wanted to enter the EU.

“If they are coming to the EU, it means that everyone must share the burden on the principle of solidarity, which at the moment is not as it should be.”

Asked if there was a unit or an operation named Corridor, he said the police reported daily if a vehicle was stopped with smugglers transporting illegal migrants across Croatian territory, adding that it was a serious operation.

“This year alone 668 smugglers have been arrested and if you consider that each was transporting between five and 50 people, you see the scope of it,” he said, adding that the Croatian police were also engaged in stopping suspicious vehicles and people illegally staying in Croatia in an attempt to reach other EU countries.

About 4,000 smugglers have been caught in the past four years and if each was transporting only ten people, that’s 40,000 people who would have been in Croatia illegally or secondary immigrants in another EU country, Bozinovic said.