Croatia and Serbia Continue to Trade Accusations

An overview of the Croatian media reporting of the ongoing dispute with Serbia.

Croatia and Serbia continue to trade accusations regarding the refugees and who is responsible for the problems on their border crossings. By closing the Croatian-Serbian border, Zagreb and Belgrade are playing a very dangerous game, whose results are difficult to predict. While the Croatian-Serbian relations have sunk probably to the lowest point since the end of the war, the EU has decided to get involved as well, reports the Croatian media on September 25, 2015.

One of the victims of the Croatian-Serbian economic war is the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), which Serbia concluded with the EU in April 2008. The agreement establishes a free trade zone between the EU and Serbia. However, the free trade between the two sides has been violated by the latest decisions of the Croatian and Serbian authorities. Unsurprisingly, Brussels yesterday announced that the European Commission is analyzing whether the SAA has been violated.

“SAA has been signed as an agreement for normal circumstances, and not for these extraordinary conditions, which require some other instruments, particularly a closer cooperation among the countries of the region”, says Olgica Spevec, who participated in the negotiations on the Croatian SAA with the EU in 2001. One expert believes that Croatia has not violated the SAA. “Hungarians have recently closed the border with Serbia. And what about the Greek blockade of Macedonia? And what about the Greek attitude towards refugees, which is the main cause for everything?”, asks the expert.

There are also rumors that the border between Serbia and Croatia will be opened no later than Monday, according to the Serbian daily Danas. “Both Serbia and Croatia will perhaps open their borders as early as Friday because the EU will insist on it. It is not realistic that the problem with the closure of the borders, created due to the refugee crisis, will be solved in Serbia, because it is impossible”, say diplomatic sources.

The European Union expects the issue to be resolved by Monday. The final deadline is October 7 when an extraordinary summit of the Western Balkans dedicated to the refugee crisis will be held in Luxembourg. Diplomats added that they are working on organizing a meeting or at least a contact between Zoran Milanović and Aleksandar Vučić. Serbia will in the end probably have to meet Milanović’s demands and send some of the refugees towards the Hungarian border crossing Horgoš.

The Hungarian embassy in Belgrade claims that there is no agreement between Serbian and Hungarian authorities for the refugees from Serbia to be diverted exclusively to the Croatian border. However, diplomatic sources say that there must be some kind of agreement, and that it is evident that relations between Serbia and Hungary have rapidly improved in recent days.

Leader of the Croatian opposition, HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko said yesterday that the closing of the border is the continuation of prime minister’s harmful policies. “When we talk about the blockade of the border and preventing the passage of goods and people, Croatia is losing somewhere between a million and two million euros per day. It’s bad for Croatia. It seems to me that all of this, this pretense of great patriotism is not good. Milanović is doing it just due to the election campaign. He is now pretending to be in a conflict with Serbia? With Serbia, we have many more reasons to be in conflict, for example, the facts about the Homeland War. Mr. Milanović has generated and produced a war that we at this point really do not need. It is a war in which he is supposed to be a hero because he did not participate in some other wars. It is not good for Croatia”, said Karamarko.

Article sources Jutarnji List, Index.hr, Vecernji List