“Why don't we send forces to Syria and protect the population directly on the ground? It would be in our interest and in their interest”. This is the position of Miro Kovac, Croatian foreign minister, who spoke on Wednesday at a conference in the Rome office of the Italian Society for International Organization (Sioi).
“We must have a humanitarian approach and show generosity – added Kovac –, but it is obvious that we cannot accept too many people within the European Union. The risk is to destabilize our society, as evidenced by a certain radicalization that is emerging in some countries, for example in Germany. On the other hand, if too many Syrians moved to Europe permanently – because we know that reversing migration flows is very difficult – who would be left to rebuild the country in the future, when the war is over?”.
According to the Croatian minister, the EU cannot renounce the Schengen agreements, but at the same time it must "better protect its external borders, sharing responsibilities", because "Greece is a small country and cannot bear this burden alone ”. Furthermore, for Kovac we need to face the Syrian crisis “from a global perspective, working together. The influences acting today on the Middle Eastern area are the same as those involved in the war in Bosnia 22-23 years ago: the European Union, Russia, Turkey and the United States. Today as then, we cannot think of resolving the situation if all these forces are not sitting around the same table".
The comparison is not accidental: Kovac also spoke of a project for the stabilization of south-eastern Europe which passes first of all through "the entry into the European Union of Bosnia, where Croats and Serbs coexist alongside the Bosnian majority, the first many of the seconds. Croatia intends to demonstrate that it is a responsible member of the EU by supporting this country's accession process to the EU area”.
Franco Frattini, president of Sioi, expressed his appreciation for the role played by Croatia in safeguarding the Schengen agreements, "which represent one of the most important achievements of united Europe, despite the fact that today they are much contested", and for the "pragmatic and realistic" of Zagreb regarding the "relations with Russia, which must be involved in the negotiations to defeat terrorism in Syria".
