File Photo of European Union Flag
Zagreb, Croatia:
Croatia sought to ease tensions with its former foe Serbia Friday after the EU's powerful executive intervened in a bitter row sparked by Europe's worst refugee crisis in decades.
Both countries -- former enemies in the 1990s war following the breakup of Yugoslavia -- have been embroiled in tit-for-tat restrictions caused by the human exodus washing through the Balkans.
Croatia closed all but one of its border crossings with Serbia and blamed Belgrade for diverting an unrelenting flow of migrants towards its frontier.
In Brussels, the European Commission said it was "urgently seeking clarifications" from Croatia, prompting Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic to announce he planned to remove border restrictions with Serbia shortly.
"I'm holding intensive talks with my colleagues to remove today or tomorrow the measures that we had to introduce," Milanovic told reporters.
As thousands of migrants and refugees continued to stream through Croatia towards northern Europe, non-EU Macedonia said trucks with Macedonian number plates were also being affected by the restrictions.
More than a hundred were stacked up at the frontier between both countries.
Deputy Economy Minister Hristijan Delev warned that if by Tuesday the border had not "re-opened", Macedonia, Serbia and other countries that were part of a central European free trade grouping "will have to meet to find a solution."
Hungary PM to seal Croatia border
Official figures showed some 55,000 refugees had entered Croatia over nine days, including nearly 8,500 just on Thursday.
And as cold and rainy weather settled in, migrants -- some of them wearing just shorts and plastic sandals -- were seeking medical help at Croatia's Opatovac transit centre near Serbia, local media reported.
The huge influx started when Hungary sealed its border with Serbia to prevent refugees from using the country as a thoroughfare to western Europe.
The closure prompted the migrants to divert their route through Croatia instead, which was quickly overwhelmed.
Zagreb now buses a large majority of the migrants straight to the border with Hungary, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Friday Budapest eventually planned to seal its border with Croatia too.
"The influx of migrants is not going to abate... We want to stop people crossing," Orban told reporters in Vienna after a meeting aimed at smoothing over differences with Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann.
"Introducing the border protection to Serbia has met expectations. Our duty is to make it happen on the Hungarian-Croatian border as well," he said.
Hungary's border closure -- and the razor-wire barriers it has set up along its frontiers with Serbia and parts of Croatia not marked by the Drava river -- have been widely criticised.
On Thursday, Budapest announced it had also started to roll out a mobile barrier along its border with Slovenia -- the first such measure within the EU's treasured passport-free Schengen zone.
Tensions 'completely unnecessary'
The refugee crisis has seen major divisions open in Europe, especially between western and former communist eastern countries, but also among former Yugoslav nations whose relations are fragile.
Serbia and Croatia have been trading barbed words rarely seen heard they fought the war in the 1990s.
Belgrade compared the border restrictions taken by Zagreb to those "taken in the past at the time of the (Nazi) fascist regime in Croatia" during World War II.
Milanovic, for his part, has accused Belgrade of striking a "deal" with Budapest to send all migrants to Croatia, which he warned could not cope with such large numbers.
But in New York late Thursday, Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic said tensions between both countries were "completely unnecessary."
"I believe we should ease tensions as soon as possible and start resolving the problem (of migrants) in partnership with the EU, but also countries like Turkey," Pusic was quoted as saying by the state-run HINA news agency.
Leaders at at an EU emergency summit in Brussels agreed to boost aid for Syria's neighbours to stop them coming to Europe, and to strengthen the 28-member bloc's outer frontiers, with warships to be used against traffickers in international waters in the Mediterranean from October 7.
On Tuesday, interior ministers also decided to relocate 120,000 refugees among most of the EU states, defying opposition from eastern countries Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia.
And as diplomatic wranglings continued, the International Organization for Migration said more than 493,000 people had arrived in Europe since the beginning of the year.
In updated figures, it added that more than 360,000 of these had made landfall in Greece, the vast majority Syrians fleeing conflict and Islamic State extremists.
A total of 2,873 people, meanwhile, have died or gone missing.
Both countries -- former enemies in the 1990s war following the breakup of Yugoslavia -- have been embroiled in tit-for-tat restrictions caused by the human exodus washing through the Balkans.
Croatia closed all but one of its border crossings with Serbia and blamed Belgrade for diverting an unrelenting flow of migrants towards its frontier.
In Brussels, the European Commission said it was "urgently seeking clarifications" from Croatia, prompting Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic to announce he planned to remove border restrictions with Serbia shortly.
"I'm holding intensive talks with my colleagues to remove today or tomorrow the measures that we had to introduce," Milanovic told reporters.
As thousands of migrants and refugees continued to stream through Croatia towards northern Europe, non-EU Macedonia said trucks with Macedonian number plates were also being affected by the restrictions.
More than a hundred were stacked up at the frontier between both countries.
Deputy Economy Minister Hristijan Delev warned that if by Tuesday the border had not "re-opened", Macedonia, Serbia and other countries that were part of a central European free trade grouping "will have to meet to find a solution."
Hungary PM to seal Croatia border
Official figures showed some 55,000 refugees had entered Croatia over nine days, including nearly 8,500 just on Thursday.
And as cold and rainy weather settled in, migrants -- some of them wearing just shorts and plastic sandals -- were seeking medical help at Croatia's Opatovac transit centre near Serbia, local media reported.
The huge influx started when Hungary sealed its border with Serbia to prevent refugees from using the country as a thoroughfare to western Europe.
The closure prompted the migrants to divert their route through Croatia instead, which was quickly overwhelmed.
Zagreb now buses a large majority of the migrants straight to the border with Hungary, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Friday Budapest eventually planned to seal its border with Croatia too.
"The influx of migrants is not going to abate... We want to stop people crossing," Orban told reporters in Vienna after a meeting aimed at smoothing over differences with Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann.
"Introducing the border protection to Serbia has met expectations. Our duty is to make it happen on the Hungarian-Croatian border as well," he said.
Hungary's border closure -- and the razor-wire barriers it has set up along its frontiers with Serbia and parts of Croatia not marked by the Drava river -- have been widely criticised.
On Thursday, Budapest announced it had also started to roll out a mobile barrier along its border with Slovenia -- the first such measure within the EU's treasured passport-free Schengen zone.
Tensions 'completely unnecessary'
The refugee crisis has seen major divisions open in Europe, especially between western and former communist eastern countries, but also among former Yugoslav nations whose relations are fragile.
Serbia and Croatia have been trading barbed words rarely seen heard they fought the war in the 1990s.
Belgrade compared the border restrictions taken by Zagreb to those "taken in the past at the time of the (Nazi) fascist regime in Croatia" during World War II.
Milanovic, for his part, has accused Belgrade of striking a "deal" with Budapest to send all migrants to Croatia, which he warned could not cope with such large numbers.
But in New York late Thursday, Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic said tensions between both countries were "completely unnecessary."
"I believe we should ease tensions as soon as possible and start resolving the problem (of migrants) in partnership with the EU, but also countries like Turkey," Pusic was quoted as saying by the state-run HINA news agency.
Leaders at at an EU emergency summit in Brussels agreed to boost aid for Syria's neighbours to stop them coming to Europe, and to strengthen the 28-member bloc's outer frontiers, with warships to be used against traffickers in international waters in the Mediterranean from October 7.
On Tuesday, interior ministers also decided to relocate 120,000 refugees among most of the EU states, defying opposition from eastern countries Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia.
And as diplomatic wranglings continued, the International Organization for Migration said more than 493,000 people had arrived in Europe since the beginning of the year.
In updated figures, it added that more than 360,000 of these had made landfall in Greece, the vast majority Syrians fleeing conflict and Islamic State extremists.
A total of 2,873 people, meanwhile, have died or gone missing.
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