Europe without borders is impossible but one should ensure a situation without border control, President Zoran Milanovic said on Saturday.

Speaking at a Samobor Town Council session on the occasion of the town’s 781st anniversary, he commented on Slovenia’s reintroduction of border control, saying the border is back.

“Though not as barbed or razor wire, which the Slovenian government just removed, only to reintroduce border control now. I understand them as they have no choice because of their home policy. Although, at those border crossings they certainly won’t catch those they are after, illegal migrants,” Milanovic said, adding that illegal migrants will move there where there is no control.

“However, this is a lesson to remind ourselves that the EU is, first and foremost, an alliance of national states which have their history, identity and character, but also fears and prejudices. Europe without borders, that’s impossible. Actually, that’s quite an awkward argument.”

He expressed solidarity with Slovenia and said he was confident border control would be called off by Easter, maybe sooner, but there would be some new crisis in the future. “And we only have to do what is possible for the world to be as peaceful as possible, without war, destruction and horror because our state lives and prospers off that.”

Cause of increased flow of illegal migrants in BiH

Speaking to the press after the Town Council session, Milanovic said the cause of the increased flow of illegal migrants on the borders was in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s visa regime and that this could be solved if BiH introduced stricter entry criteria.

The introduction of control on the Slovenia is not the end of the Schengen Area, he said, confident the situation will return to normal soon.

“This is a warning that Europe without borders doesn’t exist, that’s a very stupid argument. Europe without border control exists, borders exist. People fought for Croatia, for borders, for a piece of land. You can’t just forget that, but border control is a hassle we are trying to avoid, yet that isn’t always possible, so I understand the Slovenians,” he said, recalling that Austria reintroduced border control in 2015 at the height of the migrant crisis.

“The problem is the visa regime which BiH has or does not have with some states whose citizens freely arrive in Sarajevo, land at the airport and then go on. One can put an end to that,” Milanović said.

“One should talk with the authorities in BiH because some states evidently don’t meet the minimum EU criteria. BiH is not in the EU, but if we want to be the same society, we should play by some rules. I won’t say pan-Islamic solidarity, but some thoughtlessness in approach and some illusion of a common brotherhood of all Slavs or all Muslims leads to these things, that people arrive without any control.”

“I think this situation can be solved only if BiH introduces stricter criteria for entering the state. Not just anyone can enter,” Milanović said.

Croatia cannot step up border control any more, he added. “I don’t see a way to do it, unless we mine it and shoot at people. That’s a disaster, it’s out of the question.”

“The army’s place is not on the border, but I see that there is a different idea in Croatia, so we can talk about it, but I’m not for it. It doesn’t seem smart. The army simply isn’t trained for that. If you deploy the army, there will be fatalities.”

The Austrians and the Germans should do the most because migrants generally cross Croatia to reach northern Europe, the president said.

Asked if the problem was in Europe because it could not agree on a common asylum policy, he said Europe “has been quite lost for years” and that this “is a consequence of thoughtlessness and fascination with some ideals, standardised solutions such as ‘Europe without borders, we are all Europeans’.”

“No, we are Croatian citizens… we are different, the farther you go the more so. This should be understood so that we can finally live normally, instead of embarking on some changes every five minutes and constantly talking about some changes to fundamental agreements,” Milanovic said.

“That’s permanent insecurity and instability. You can’t function normally like that. Then we’ll change the model for making these decisions, then there will be no unanimity anymore, then we’ll outvote Croatia, Hungary, Poland, tomorrow Portugal. No, there are some rules of the game,” he added.