Croatia will allow free passage of migrants across its territory, Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said on Wednesday as a first group entered the EU member State from Serbia since Hungary sealed its borders.
“They will be able to cross Croatia and we have been working intensively on that,” Milanovic told lawmakers during a regular Parliament Session. “We are ready to accept and direct those people — their religion and skin colour is completely irrelevant — to where they apparently wish to go... Germany, Scandinavia.”
Milanovic spoke as earlier Wednesday some 150 Middle Eastern refugees crossed into Croatia from Serbia, its neighbour to the east. “These people are here... They do not want to come to Croatia or Hungary either and that is why I do not understand where is the problem of letting them pass through that country,” he said, strongly criticising Hungary, which borders Croatia to the northeast.
“I don’t approve the (migrant) policy of Budapest, I consider it harmful and dangerous. Not that the walls that are being erected will stop anyone, but they are also sending a horrible message. A fence in Europe in the 21st centry is not an answer but a threat.”
President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic called a crisis meeting of the country’s top security body, the National Security Council, which could be held either on Friday or next Tuesday.