The European Commission said on Thursday it was politically unbiased, following the statement by Slovenian Prime Minister Marjan Sarec that the Commission might adopt a political decision on Croatia's readiness to join the Schengen area.

As we have said earlier, the European Commission is politically unbiased. The case between Croatia and Slovenia is now before the Court of the European Union, the Commission said in response to a request for comment on Sarec’s statement.

Speaking to reporters on the margins of the UN General Assembly session in New York on Thursday, Sarec said he was unhappy with the outgoing European Commission’s decision to put on the agenda the question of whether Croatia met the technical requirements for joining the Schengen Area, to which Slovenia has reservations.

Sarec said he feared the Commission might adopt a “political decision” to the effect that Croatia met the Schengen requirements although, he added, they were very strict and demanding and Croatia still had not met them.

“We are primarily concerned about security and it seems flippant to me to put this issue on the agenda just before the end of the Commission’s term,” Sarec said.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday he expected the Commission, whose term ends on November 1, to recommend that Croatia met the requirements for joining the Schengen Area.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said after meeting Plenkovic in Brussels on Thursday that Croatia should become a full Schengen member and that the Commission was finalising its assessment.