Croatia, along with other member states on the European Union's external border, is seeking more European funds for border protection, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said in Brussels on Friday.
“Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, we have insisted on additional financial support for states protecting the Union’s external borders,” said Plenkovic after the summit in Brussels, at which one of the topics was the issue of migration and external border protection.
Plenkovic explained that the idea was to ask the European Commission to prepare a comprehensive report for the Council and to allocate adequate financial resources to assist member states in protecting the external border as well as possible.
“Someone will invest in wires, in fences, someone in technical infrastructure and equipment,” said Plenkovic, reiterating that building wire fences along the border was out of the question for Croatia and that it had invested €200 million in border security equipment so far.
Asked whether Croatia is in danger of being asked to return European funds if it is proven that those funds had been used for violent pushbacks of migrants, Plenkovic said that no one mentioned Croatia in that context.
“That wasn’t the topic at all. You’ve seen that Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic, chief of police and I reacted promptly. The minister sent a letter to Commissioner Ylva Johansson on that subject, we have clarified everything,” Plenkovic said.
He added that Croatia was a responsible and serious member states which was the first to introduce an independent border monitoring mechanism, which monitors “the behaviour of Croatian police officers, whose dedication I would like to emphasise and thank them for”.
The police directorate has recently suspended three police officers and initiated a disciplinary procedure against them after footage was released in the media showing masked persons with parts of police uniform hitting migrants. Investigation has shown that the persons were riot police officers.
Plenkovic said no EU member state was ready to accept a large number of illegal migrants anymore, no matter where they came from.
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