Croatia can be satisfied with how the EU views its contribution to the Schengen area and European security and it can expect the attainment of its goal of becoming part of that area with optimism, Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said on Tuesday, after a meeting of EU home affairs ministers in Luxembourg.

The home affairs ministers on Tuesday held its first political debate on the strategy on the future of Schengen, which the Commission published last week.

The Commission last Wednesday presented a strategy for “a stronger and more resilient” Schengen area, which includes extending that area to EU member states which are not part of that area yet and called for the admission of Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania to the Schengen area as they meet all technical criteria for membership in that border-free area.

The ministers also discussed migrant management on all routes leading to the EU. They also discussed the recent proposal for a regulation on the rules for the use of artificial intelligence and the possibility of using that technology in the field of internal security.

The ministerial discussion also covered the experiences gained during the Covid-19 pandemic, the state of crime and its suppression.

The central topic was the new Strategy on the Future of Schengen. In addition to the Strategy, a proposal for a regulation on the Schengen evaluation mechanism, in which the European Commission also incorporated the experience gained during the Schengen evaluation of Croatia, was also released, the Interior Ministry said in a press release.

The European Commission also intends to present a proposal to amend the Schengen Borders Code by the end of the year. With the new Strategy on the Future of Schengen, the European Commission is responding to the challenges that area has been facing in recent years in order to make it more resilient to future crises.

“The debate on the Schengen strategy pointed to several important factors, primarily the EU’s determination to have strongly protected external borders in the future, on which Croatia (…) has been working on intensively for several years. Then to strengthen cooperation between security services, especially police, at the EU level in order to connect the element of external security of the Schengen area and internal cooperation, which means that border controls between Schengen countries would be activated only in case of emergency,” Bozinovic said.

In the debate, the ministers agreed that member states with internal border controls should keep that possibility, but only as a last resort. They agreed that the future of Schengen was based on a modern and effective management of the EU’s external border, strengthening police cooperation and combating serious and organised crime.

For Croatia, which has recently successfully completed the Schengen evaluation process and manages the EU’s longest land external border, it is important that the Strategy places emphasis on enlargement as an indespensible contribution to strengthening resilience and eliminating fragmentation inside the Schengen area.

Bozinovic stressed that it was high time Croatia became member of the Schengen area.

In the debate, he presented data on Croatia’s efforts to protect the EU’s external border, prevent illegal border crossing and combat smuggling networks and other forms of organised crime. In 2020 alone, Croatia carried out over 226 million checks in the Schengen information system, which ranks it among the top five member states.

Bozinovic had a bilateral meeting with European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, and they spoke about the final steps for making a political decision of the Council on Croatia’s accession to the Schengen area.

Bozinovic also met with new Dutch Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden and Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer.

EC approves financial support to Croatia to procure firefighting jets

During the council in Luxembourg, Minister Bozinovic also received a notification from the European Commission that Croatia has been approved a third financial support for two firefighting airplanes. The European Commission has greenlighted €1.8 million for Croatia, of which €1.3 million is co-financed by the EU to cover the costs of two Croatian firefighting airplanes, which will be used if needed to extinguish fires in EU member states in the period from 15 June to 31 October 2021.