ZAGREB, June 8, 2018 – Law enforcement authorities from southeast European countries, who convened for a conference on migration and asylum seeking matters in Sarajevo on Thursday, concluded that the migrant crisis had to be kept under full control and agreed on a set of operational measures aimed at thwarting illegal migrant routes through the region.
The conference was held in Sarajevo following the developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina exposing that country to a tide of migrants since the start of this year. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Security Minister Dragan Mektić said on Wednesday that the country had recorded over 5,600 illegal entries of western Europe-bound migrants since the beginning of this year.
Currently, Bosnia is caring for 1,700-1,800 irregular migrants.
After the conference, Mektić told the press that the situation of 2015 when the migrant crisis culminated, must not repeat. He elaborated that each country has to establish its own biometric database about migrants and that the database should be compatible with the data bases in the European Union in order to specify information about when a migrant entered Europe and if they applied for asylum.
The Western Balkans should also be part of the operations being conducted by Frontex. Mektić warned of the state of affairs along the border between Greece and Albania which, he said, is out of control.
Austrian police commander Franz Lang said it was high time concrete measures were taken to prevent the recurrence of the situation that happened in 2015 when the migrant crisis escalated. Slow political processes can’t be an excuse for the absence of cooperation between the police, he said.
Croatia was represented at the meeting by State Secretary at the Interior Ministry Terezija Gras.
