📋 Tender Overview
Croatia will be ready in time for the implementation of the pact on migration and asylum and will fulfill all the obligations arising from it, Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said today in Luxembourg.
The European Commission presented to the interior ministers of the member states, meeting in Luxembourg, a joint plan for the implementation of the pact on migration and asylum, on the basis of which member states will draw up national implementation plans.
The Pact on Migration and Asylum is a package of 10 pieces of legislation reforming Europe's migration and asylum policies. In order for it to be implemented, Member States need to put in place the legal and operational capacity to apply the new laws. Therefore, the deadline for the start of implementation has been set for 2026.
The EU's Joint Plan for the Implementation of the Pact will form the basis for the preparation of Member States' National Implementation Plans, which should be finalised by 12 December 2024. In doing so, Member States can count on the operational, technical and financial support of the Commission and EU agencies throughout the process.
"Croatia will be ready for implementation and will fulfill what is important, and that is the protection of the external border, which means preventing all those who do not want to enter the country through border crossings, but in an illegal way, and then show themselves to victims who need international protection," Bozinovic said.
He added that the pact on migration and asylum puts emphasis on the protection of external borders, that member states and common EU institutions, and not human smugglers, should decide who can enter the EU and receive international protection.
He says that the Croatian Government and he personally have pointed out from the beginning the illogicality of applying regulations from the middle of the last century to today's situation.
"The Convention on the Rights of Refugees was adopted exclusively for those people who were victims of military actions and who, according to that convention, went to the first countries that could receive them. What we have today, the seventh or eighth year after that great migrant crisis, are mostly economic migrants who use all the time the opportunities that such outdated legislation gave them in order to stay in the territory of the European Union and to seek their happiness there," Bozinovic said.
He also said that the new pact will certainly not provide answers to all new questions and challenges, but stressed that there is a good atmosphere within the EU, that everyone is aware of the elementary facts that no country can deal with the problem of migration alone.
Member States will have to prepare for the full implementation of the Pact in the next two years. This includes the implementation of the new Eurodac, a large-scale IT system that will store and process data on asylum seekers.
A new migration management system at the EU's external borders will need to be put in place, which should help manage irregular arrivals of third-country nationals and put in place fast, efficient and simplified asylum and return procedures and put in place strict safeguards.
Bozinovic warned that the European Union will not be able to see that some neighboring countries do not have a harmonized visa policy for a long time, which is why the pressure on its external borders is growing.
"After today's discussion, I can say that a very high level of consensus of the Member States and European institutions, and refers to the fact that it will no longer be possible to look at the fact that someone comes to countries that have a visa-free regime with the European Union without consequences because these countries have a visa-free regime with third countries and then we practically get illegal migrants from commercial travelers, from so-called tourists", Bozinovic said in Luxembourg, where he participated in a ministerial meeting.
About 40 percent of illegal entries into Croatia are citizens of Russia, China and Turkey, who can come to Serbia or Bosnia and Herzegovina without visas and then try to illegally cross the green border into Croatia on the territory of the EU and then seek international protection.
"This is something that will certainly no longer be tolerated, the Council of the EU and the Commission will make appropriate decisions, and that means that the benefits that some people achieve from the visa-free regime will be questioned," Bozinovic added.
When asked when this could happen, Bozinovic replied that it is difficult to say, but that it is not in anyone's interest to introduce a visa regime for countries that have a visa-free regime with the European Union, but that these countries must sooner or later understand that this practice is met with increasing dissatisfaction.
He said that some issues of cooperation with third countries can no longer be viewed only through the foreign policy dimension, without consulting the security sectors, including the Minister of the Interior in the Council of the EU.
