Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic-Radman said on Tuesday he expected that, with the EU's help, Bosnia and Herzegovina will start accommodating migrants in camps along the border where they enter Bosnia, objecting to distributing them across the country.

“We are not for distributing migrants across Bosnia as that would additionally burden the state of Bosnia and its capacities. Croatia shares 1,000 kilometres of border with Bosnia and that also threatens Croatia’s security,” he said on a visit to Mostar, a city in southern Bosnia.

The minister said Croatia had proposed that all EU funds be directed at strengthening Bosnia’s institutional capacities. “Instead of the current camps, they should be built at the points of entry on the border, which would make it easier to manage the migrant crisis with the help of EU institutions.”

Most migrants in Bosnia are staying in northwestern Una-Sana Canton which borders Croatia and in Sarajevo Canton. They are all trying to illegally cross the border into Croatia and go on to other EU countries.

Grlic-Radman said Croatia presented its stand on changing the accommodation of migrants in Bosnia at the last meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council.

The new approach to Bosnia would envisage signing an agreement with Frontex so that the migrant crisis is dealt with at the points of entry, along the country’s eastern border, he said.

“The migrant crisis is undermining stability and functionality, and you know that Croatia cares about stability and functionality,” he said.

Grlic-Radman went on to say that he was surprised by Bosnian Foreign Minister Bisera Turkovic’s official note in which she expressed her opposition to the declaration of Croatia’s exclusive economic area in the Adriatic.

He said Croatia would send a counter-note expressing the suspicion that Turkovic’s view was not  Bosnia’s official view given that Presidency Chairman Milorad Dodik had objected to it.

In Mostar, Grlic-Radman met with Bosnian Croat leaders, reiterating his support for changes to the Bosnia’s Electoral Law so that Croats could elect their government representatives without their being imposed by larger ethnic groups.