A trade war erupted between Serbia and Croatia on Thursday over the flow of migrants across their border, dragging relations between the ex-Yugoslav republics to their lowest ebb since the overthrow of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
Overnight, the Balkan neighbours exchanged tit-for-tat sanctions that saw Croatian goods and cargo vehicles banned from entering Serbia and Serbian-registered vehicles barred from Croatia, since 2013 a member of the European Union.
Serbian citizens were also being turned back at the Croatian border, though Croatia’s interior minister blamed a glitch in the computer system.
Croatia, which fought a 1991-95 war against Belgrade-backed Serb rebels to forge its independence from communist Yugoslavia, is demanding Serbia stop directing tens of thousands of migrants exclusively over their joint border, saying it cannot keep pace with the influx.
Zagreb says Serbia should send them to Hungary and Romania too, and last week closed seven of eight border crossings with Serbia to vehicles before halting cargo traffic altogether in an attempt to exert pressure on Belgrade.
As a midnight deadline set by Serbia for Croatia to lift the blockade expired, Belgrade announced it was banning entry to all Croatian cargo vehicles and Croatian-made goods.
Croatia swiftly replied, halting all Serbian-registered vehicles. Serbian passport holders were also being turned back at the border, Reuters witnesses said. Police gave conflicting information, but Croatian Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said: “As far as people are concerned, they can enter Croatia.”
‘SORRY ABOUT THIS’:
The row risks setting back years of work in rebuilding relations between Serbia and Croatia since Serbia came in from the cold with the ouster of Milosevic, who backed ethnic Serb forces in Croatia and Bosnia with guns, men and money during the collapse of the Yugoslav federation in the 1990s.
Serbian Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic said Serbia had been “brutally attacked by Croatia.”
Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said Serbia’s behaviour was “not normal.”
“I am sorry about this. We had planned to open the border today but now we have to react to this,” Milanovic, whose centre-left cabinet faces a fight for power with conservative opponents in a parliamentary election this year, said in Brussels after Serbia imposed the ban.
“There will be no war or violence, everything will be calm, but this is not normal behaviour (by Serbia),” he said after a summit of EU leaders dedicated to the migrant crisis.
More than 40,000 migrants, many of them Syrian refugees, have entered Croatia from Serbia since Tuesday last week when Hungary, northern neighbour to both countries, barred their entry to the European Union by sealing its southern border with Serbia with a metal fence.
Serbia has been bussing migrants straight to the Croatian border after they enter Serbia from Macedonia.
Croatia in turn sends them north across its own border with Hungary, which passes them on to Austria, but Zagreb says it cannot cope with the pace.
