Pusić: "Croatian society at a higher level of openness and freedom"

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Zagreb, 21st January - "In a situation of harmonization with the European Union we are asked and our goals are higher level of protection of human rights and democratic standards but at the same time, stricter migration policy and control of the asylum seekers. Simultaneously we are in a position of guaranteeing higher standards of human rights and stricter controls and criteria for immigrants and asylum within the Croatia", said Vice President of CPP, first Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Vesna Pusić at the CPP's Political Academy roundtable on "Immigration policy".

"As far as Croatia, our interest is to have more people, given that we are sparsely populated, assuming a successful economy. Our interests and security are stability, not introducing conflicts and threats to the country, under the assumption that we are capable of successfully integrating people who come to Croatia into our society", said Pusić, adding that integration involves more than just formal rights, respectively education, health insurance, housing policy and flexibilisation and open society.

Migration policy was one of the conditions that we have delivered to the EU, reminded Vesna Pusić, that covers seven main areas: visa status of foreign and Croatian citizenship, asylum, integration policies, irregular migration and emigration from the Croatia.

"To harmonize laws, match statistics and establish institutions is not easy, but it's the easier part of the work. The demanding part of the job is the extent to which Croatian society is ready and able to live in this changed situation and use it as a positive opportunity to open and have nicer life for all, and not as a threat to close and become discriminatory, less freely and negative" said Pusić.

Because the old rule says, reminded Vice President of CPP, the most vulnerable groups are the best measure of the quality of human and civil rights in one country. Pusić has concluded that today's discussion is a small contribution to what it means to take advantage of this new situation for "Croatian society at a higher level of openness and freedom instead of Croatian society in the retracted snail shell".

About the current state of the Croatian labor market and employment of foreigners has spoken an expert on labor market Sanja Crnković - Pozaić, who said that Croatia must consciously and permanently initiate immigration for those knowledge and skills that will help in our development.

She has also mentioned and specific areas where there could be a labor shortage, because there are not enough young people who could replace those who are going to retire. Among them are the agriculture and food industry, geology, petroleum, chemistry, textile and leather, construction, transport and logistics.

Replacements, said Crnković - Pozaić, could be sought among the unemployed and inactive, but there is a problem of the age of these people, but also the level of education, because, as she said, most of these people are not ready for further education.

"Croatia does not have enough resources and capacity to solve such a problem in the short term. We are limited by the fact that we do not know the future needs of the labor market and immigration policy because we are not able to define and can only speak in general", said Sanja Crnković - Pozaić.

"An effective immigration policy should be based on the analysis of the future needs of the labor market, forecasts of demand for skills across sectors and industries, focus on medium-term imbalances between supply and demand and target selection qualifications and occupations that could dynamize the labor market. It is necessary to raise the scientific research to a higher level, to accelerate education reform and strengthen the capacity to develop new technologies", concluded Crnković - Pozaić.