The temporary reintroduction of border control by more and more EU member states within the Schengen Area is due to the new security situation, but the control won't be as it was before Croatia joined Schengen, Croatian Interior Minister Davor Božinović said on Thursday.

“The Schengen Code allows member states to reintroduce internal control in some emergencies, but this does not mean a return to the border control that was in force before entering Schengen,” he told the press in Luxembourg, where he is attending a meeting of member states’ interior ministers.

The security situation has changed after Hamas attacked Israel and what followed, including terrorist attacks in Belgium and France.

“It’s a domino effect, an introduction of temporary solutions envisaged by Schengen rules. That’s why Italy decided to introduce control on the Slovenian border and Slovenia on the Croatian and Hungarian borders,” Davor Božinović said.

Austria introduced control on the Slovenian border eight years ago, but not systematic checks, one usually crosses the border without stopping, a vehicle is stopped every once in a while, he added.

Božinović said he talked with Slovenian Interior Minister Boštjan Poklukar this morning. “Judging by that talk, I don’t expect a strict control and it definitely should not affect the population near the border.”

Božinović announced that he would meet with his Slovenian and Italian counterparts in Trieste on 2 November to talk about security and cooperation.

Božinović said he and Poklukar also talked about intensifying police cooperation in combating terrorism.

He said the joint Croatian-Slovenian police controls agreed late last month were already showing results in fewer illegal migrants.

Their numbers in Slovenia, he said, “are much smaller than six weeks ago, which confirms that Italy’s decision regarding Slovenia and Slovenia’s regarding Croatia and Hungary are motivated first and foremost by concern about possible terrorist attacks, so I expect that in the foreseeable future we will all work together on simply returning things to where they belong.”

Asked if anyone was asking that Croatia agree to Frontex’s presence on its territory, Božinović said “nobody can ask that of us.”

Poklukar and he “concluded at the last Council meeting in Brussels that the illegal migration problem does not start in our states and that the source of the problem is neither Slovenia nor Croatia,” he said, adding that they asked Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson to step up negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina so that a status agreement could be concluded to allow Frontex’ deployment in BiH.

“Our position is that Frontex should be deployed in BiH, notably in the part from which the largest number of illegal migrants are coming, and Croatia has enough police and equipment to successfully guard the EU’s external borders.”

Božinović underlined the importance of the accession candidates in the Western Balkans aligning with the EU’s visa policy.

Something has been done about that, but there are still countries from which it’s possible to arrive in Belgrade or Sarajevo by plane, after which these people become migrants and attempt to illegally enter the EU, he said.

Croatia and Slovenia have been talking about that “for years,” he said, “that there should be more focus on the Western Balkans, that their capacities should be boosted, that they should control who is coming to the states on their external borders.”

Serbia and North Macedonia have status agreements with Frontex, but BiH not yet due to obstruction from the Serb entity.

N1 pratite putem aplikacija za Android | iPhone/iPad i mreža Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok.