Croatian Prime Minister meets with the President of the European Council in Zagreb.
Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanović met in Zagreb on Thursday with President of the European Council Donald Tusk. Milanović and Tusk discussed the refugee crisis and possible solutions at the European Union level. They also discussed the security situation in Europe and the challenges faced by the European Union after the recent terrorist attacks and threats against European peace and stability, reports Index.hr and Vecernji List on November 25, 2015.
On Wednesday, European Council President Tusk will take part in the Brdo-Brijuni Process Summit, which is held in Zagreb with the aim of further stabilization of Southeast Europe and supporting the reform processes in the countries that want membership in Euro-Atlantic institutions.
"The issue of border protection in the European Union has become dramatically linked with the issue of protecting citizens. So far, the refugee phenomenon has been mainly treated as a humanitarian and organizational issue, but after the massacre in Paris and events in Brussels it is becoming more security oriented", Croatian Member of European Parliament Tonino Picula said at a meeting of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
He pointed out that the European Union is in a special type of war – which is partly also a civil war. "Europe has not been attacked by foreign armies, but by some of its citizens who were born and raised here. The roots of this phenomenon should be sought in a kind of social pathology resulting from the underlying feeling of exclusion from the system which should ensure social promotion and acceptance. Of course, not everyone who is unemployed automatically becomes a terrorist", Picula said.
Member states of the EU are aware that their security and political situation is largely dependent on the willingness of countries in Southeast Europe to cooperate, said on Tuesday the Croatian Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Vesna Pusić who participated in the Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Southeast Europe in Berlin.
"Other countries and representatives of the EU member states expect much more from our region and I must say that take us a lot more seriously and can see that in some ways their own security depends on our strength and readiness to cooperate", Pusić said.
This year's conference brought together foreign ministers from the Western Balkan countries, Germany, Italy, Croatia and Slovenia. "Topics of discussion were political and other influences of the refugee crisis on countries that are on the Western Balkan refugee route – from Greece to Germany, the issue of cooperation between the countries of the Western Balkans and the political consequences of the changed circumstances, then the question of improving economic cooperation and, finally, the progress of Western Balkan countries which are in various stages of negotiations for EU membership", Pusić concluded.
