The Croatian government on Thursday adopted regulations intended to reorganise ten existing police stations into border police stations in order to meet technical requirements needed for the country to join the European Union's passport-free Schengen area.

The police stations in ten towns near Croatia’s border with Bosnia and Herzegovina (Imotski, Vrgorac, Gruda, Hrvatska Kostajnica, Ilok, Tovarnik, Zupanja, Vrbanja, Vrpolje, and Korenica) will be converted into border police stations in order to meet the recommendations in a 2018 evaluation of technical compliance for the country’s accession to the Schengen area.

The government also proposed merging the maritime police station in the coastal city of Zadar and the airport police station in Zadar into a single unit, as well as the merger of the border police station in Donji Srb and the police station in Gracac into a single border police station, to be based in Gracac.

In addition, 45 new jobs for police dog handlers will be created to meet the need for stronger external EU border control, said Interior Minister, Davor Bozinovic.

Two new operational units will also be established – the mobile border police unit South, and the mobile border police unit East – to be set up in the far southern and the far eastern parts of the country, said Bozinovic.

The new units will be formed at the Interior Ministry for the purpose of providing accurate and timely information to all services in charge of EU’s external border control.

“This restructuring will help make more progress in meeting the requirements in the area of external border control, which is crucial for meeting the conditions set for Croatia’s accession to the Schengen area,” said Bozinovic.

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