European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, said in Sarajevo on Friday that the European Union wants to be a reliable partner to Bosnia and Herzegovina in all aspects including the migrant crisis, underscoring that the country needs to show it is capable of controlling these processes.

Managing migrants is the responsibility of counties and Bosnia too has to act that way, and the entire country needs to take its share of the burden, Johansson said after meeting with Prime Minister Zoran Tegeltija and his deputies.

Johansson did not specify, but it was obvious she was hinting at the fact that the majority of illegal migrants in the country are concentrated in just two areas, around Sarajevo and the Bihac area because other parts of the country refuse to accept them and authorities in the Republika Srpska entity are constantly pushing back migrants to Federation territory.

Johansson is on a two-day visit to Bosnia to personally investigate the problems related to illegal migration in the country, saying that the EU can help in controlling the migrant crisis.

On Thursday Johansson visited the Una-Sana Canton where the majority of an estimated 8,000 migrants are currently staying. She spoke with local authorities and visited the makeshift Lipa migrant camp, about 20 kilometers outside Bihac.

In a statement to the press on Friday, Johansson said that she conducted open talks with Prime Minister Tegeltija and that her basic message was that they can count on the EU as a reliable partner in the current situation.

She recalled that she recently personally presented the new EU migration and asylum pact which treats migrants as a permanent issue that will not disappear and so it needs to be addressed that way.

One of the conditions of the pact is that migrants who are not eligible for humanitarian protection should be returned from the external EU border to their countries of origin.

The same rule should apply to Bosnia which would automatically facilitate control of illegal migrants in the country.

Tegeltija said that considering the size of his country and its population, it has been struggling with the excessive burden of the migrant crisis for years.

He claimed that Bosnia cannot control its borders against the migrant wave on its own and that that needs to be a joint effort by all countries by accelerating the process of readmission.

“Bosnia is prepared to be a partner in controlling migration, but it cannot be a hostage to the migrant crisis nor is it prepared to be a bedroom for migrants who enter the country and then are are being blocked from leaving it,” said Tegeltija.