Hungary has warned Croatia that it will close their border if too many asylum seekers are allowed to cross it, amid continuing tension between states on the migrants’ Balkan route towards western Europe.
As the Hungarian army nears completion of a security fence along the border with Croatia, buses and trains continue to carry thousands of migrants to that same frontier from the Opatovac camp near the Croatia-Serbia border.
“Hungary is in a very difficult situation. At the weekend alone, almost 25,000 illegal migrants crossed the border from the direction of Croatia, and we must prepare for the protection of our borders accordingly,” said interior minister Sandor Pinter during a visit to neighbouring Slovenia yesterday.
“If the pressure of migration persists at the current level and Austria and Germany fail to open an appropriate route for the onward transportation of illegal migrants, we may even have to close down the Croatian green border, as we did in the direction of Serbia,” Mr Pinter said, according to a statement from his ministry.
No date had been set to seal the fence, he said, but “we have a lot of pressure on us. It depends on how we succeed in managing this illegal flood.”
Deteriorating relations
Relations between Budapest and Zagreb have nosedived in the last fortnight, since Hungary completed a 4m high, 175km fence along its border with Serbia. This prompted more than 75,000 migrants to re-route through Croatia.
In response, Croatia set up a transit camp at Opatovac, near the migrants’ entry point from Serbia, where they receive basic care and are registered before being transported to the Hungarian border – thus bypassing the costly security fence.
So far, Hungary has allowed them to cross that border and then bussed them on to the Austrian frontier, under an elaborate and intimidating military escort of gun-wielding troops and Humvee armoured vehicles.
An extension of the fence along the Hungary-Croatia border is almost ready, however. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban has said he is ready to seal it should the need arise, once he has discussed the move with neighbouring states.
Hungary removed rolls of razor wire from its border with Slovenia on Friday night, and yesterday the two members of the EU’s “passport-free” Schengen zone agreed to mount joint police patrols along their shared frontier.
Mr Pinter said the wire had been unfurled in anticipation of the migrants possibly taking a new route through Slovenia, and he insisted that any Schengen state could reinstate border controls “for a fixed period and for a fixed purpose”.
Chilly weather
Migrants moved relatively smoothly yesterday through Opatovac, where chilly and showery weather has set in over the recent days, and dozens of buses carried them north to Hungary.
Zoran Milanovic, Croatia’s prime minister, sought to allay growing fears in Dubrovnik and other tourist areas on the country’s Adriatic coast that colder weather and Hungary’s new fence would push thousands of migrants towards them.
“There is no reception centre in the south, and there will not be – I guarantee it,” said Mr Milanovic, whose Social Democrats are under great pressure from the right-wing opposition ahead of a forthcoming general election.
“The door is open to the north. My message to the United Nations refugee agency is this: don’t let people take a southern route. It would be brutal for them, having to cross many borders and the mountains.”
Europe’s worst refugee crisis since the second World War is putting considerable strain on relations between Balkan states.
Croatia and Serbia briefly banned each other’s vehicles from their territory last week as they traded accusations over their handling of the influx of migrants, most of whom are from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Milanovic wants his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, to redirect some of the asylum seekers through Hungary and Romania, instead of allowing them all to travel to Croatia in Serbian buses and taxis.
“We’re dealing with what could be a proper state, but its authorities won’t allow it to be,” Mr Milanovic said yesterday of Serbia, as the row flared up again.
“It doesn’t tell the truth and it doesn’t stick to its agreements,” he said, adding that he did not want to discuss the refugee crisis with Mr Vucic anymore.
