Another year of service, monitoring, and advocacy for the rights of refugees and migrants is behind us, including foreign workers and Croatian returnees. Throughout 2025, our team of six employees and 42 volunteers provided support to 1,522 beneficiaries through 1,753 social and cultural assistance services, 941 legal assistance cases, 299 psychological support sessions, and 27 Croatian language courses. Since the beginning of 2026, we have supported 1,028 beneficiaries through more than 1,400 social and cultural assistance services, 757 legal assistance cases, and numerous other activities aimed at fostering social inclusion.

This year’s World Refugee Day is being marked at a time when numerous armed conflicts, political crises, and humanitarian disasters around the world continue to force millions of people to flee their homes. According to the latest report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there were 117.8 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2025. In this context, the European Union is beginning the implementation of the Migration and Asylum Pact, the most significant reform of the European asylum system in recent decades. The Pact places emphasis on rapid assessments and return procedures, raising concerns that access to international protection may become significantly more difficult. Accelerated procedures will leave less room for the individual assessment of each case, particularly when it comes to vulnerable groups.

The Pact also raises questions about European solidarity and the sharing of responsibility among member states. It remains to be seen whether the new mechanisms will truly contribute to a more equitable distribution of responsibility or whether differences among member states will continue to significantly affect the availability of protection and the quality of reception for people seeking international protection. For many years, we have called for a greater level of solidarity from Croatia. In terms of the number of international protection statuses granted, Croatia ranks near the bottom of the European Union. During 2025, Croatia granted only 24 asylum statuses and one subsidiary protection status, while in the first months of 2026 only two asylum applications were approved. Our country is one of the few European states that has not participated in refugee resettlement mechanisms for years, despite having the capacity to assist a significant number of people.

Through our daily work with people who have managed to find safety and an opportunity for a new beginning in Croatia, we directly witness both the challenges they face and their perseverance, resilience, and contributions to the communities in which they live. Our beneficiaries regularly point to difficulties in finding suitable housing, accessing the labor market, having qualifications obtained abroad recognized, and obtaining timely and understandable information. An additional challenge is the lack of interpretation and translation support, which is often crucial for exercising rights and accessing services.

Our beneficiaries frequently emphasize that knowledge of the Croatian language is one of the most important prerequisites for employment, education, and independence. It is therefore essential to ensure accessible and high-quality language learning programs, as well as support in becoming familiar with Croatian society, institutions, and the rights and responsibilities associated with living in Croatia. In addition, our society needs more activities that create opportunities for interaction between newcomers and local residents, thereby helping to build trust and reduce the prejudices and fears that often stem from unfamiliarity. In this way, social cohesion, mutual trust, and a sense of community are strengthened.

The issue of long-term integration becomes particularly apparent when discussing people displaced from Ukraine who have now spent four years living under temporary protection. More than 25,000 displaced people from Ukraine have found safety in Croatia since the beginning of the war and now live, work, study, and actively participate in the life of their local communities. In our daily work, we increasingly encounter questions about the future of their status and their possibilities for long-term residence. Prolonged uncertainty makes it more difficult to plan education, employment, and family life, and may negatively affect integration processes that have already begun. It is therefore important to provide timely and clear information about future residence options and to ensure predictable solutions for people who still cannot safely return to their homes, as well as for those who see their future in Croatia.

On World Refugee Day, we wish to remind everyone that the integration of foreigners is not an issue that concerns only them, but society as a whole. The way we respond to the challenges of integration will shape not only the lives of people who have found safety in Croatia, but also the society that we are building together. We want it to be an inclusive society in which people feel accepted, connected, and able to contribute to their community—a society that fosters a culture of encounter, trust, and solidarity. In such a society, differences are not perceived as a threat, but as an opportunity for shared growth. By contrast, a society that retreats into a logic of fear, antagonism, and exclusion undermines social cohesion and loses its sense of the common good. The homeland we are building for refugees and migrants is, in fact, the homeland we are building for ourselves and for our children.