Refugee crisis:
Border tensions rise between Serbia and Croatia over migrants.
ZAGREB, Croatia — Tensions escalated between Serbia and Croatia on Thursday as the longtime foes struggled to come up with a coherent way to deal with tens of thousands of migrants streaming through the Balkan nations to seek sanctuary in other parts of Europe.
Serbia banned imports of Croatian goods to protest the closure of the border to cargo traffic. The closure has cut Serbia off from its main trading partners in Europe and is crippling the economy, costing both nations as much as $1.1 million a day.
Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said the countermeasures were needed “to protect our statehood.”
Croatia retaliated by barring vehicles with Serbian license plates from entering the country. Croatia’s police said Serbian nationals were not let into Croatia because of “a problem” with the border information site.
“I planned to open the border ... but now I won’t,” said Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic. “We have to react to this now.”
Serbia’s foreign ministry, in a strongly-worded protest note to Croatia, called the latest measures “discriminatory” against Serbian nationals and compared them to the actions of the Nazi puppet regime in Croatia during World War II.
Croatia has shut all but one of its crossings with Serbia to block the migrant surge, which reached nearly 45,000 in a week and continues unabated. Croatia is angry that Serbia is busing migrants to its border, rather than sending them north to Hungary.
It is the lowest point in relations between the two countries since the end of the Balkan Wars in the 1990s and underscores the pressure exerted by the influx of people from the Middle East, Africa and Asia who are transiting the Balkans in hopes of going to Germany, Austria and other points north.
Croatia is angered by what it describes as Serbia’s intransigence in diverting all migrants toward Croatia, rather than Hungary, which shut its border on Sept. 15.
Serbia argues Croatia is blaming the country for circumstances beyond its control. Serbian Social Affairs Minister Aleksandar Vulin said the Croatian measures are a form of racism.
Also Thursday, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Germany’s 16 state governors have agreed on measures designed to streamline the country’s handling of the migrant influx — including declaring three Balkan countries “safe” states of origin and cutting some cash payments to newcomers.
Merkel said Thursday that Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro will be declared safe countries as part of efforts to reduce the stream of people from those countries who have arrived. The agreement calls for “pocket money” paid to people at initial reception centers to be switched to benefits in kind.