Croatia is ready to enter the Schengen Area on January 1, which means a faster and cheaper flow of goods and services, bigger competitiveness for the Croatian economy, and considerable impact on tourism revenue, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Wednesday.

Chairing a session of the inter-departmental task force for Croatia’s Schengen accession, he said the accession would also be an additional incentive to foreign investors.

Plenkovic said Croatia was fully ready for the transition at its road, rail and maritime border crossings, and that it would be ready for it at its airports on 26 March.

Only with time will we best understand how much Schengen makes life easier for citizens and enables better communication and easier arrivals for tourists and investors, he said, adding that the interest of citizens and enterprises in Schengen is big.

As of 1 January, Croatia will become the 20th member state of the euro area and the 23rd EU member state in Schengen.

Plenkovic said that since many travellers arrived on the Croatian coast by car, accession to Schengen would facilitate that and be felt in nights and arrivals as well as revenue in the years ahead.

He reiterated that the accession required meeting many criteria, notably regarding the control of over 1,300 kilometres of Schengen’s external border.

Plenković said the political choice of Croatia and his governnment was never to set up barriers, fences, “let alone barbed wire”, on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“On the contrary, we want maximum effort to be made, in the close and open police cooperation which already exists, to prevent illegal migration.”

73 crossings on land border and 12 on the sea border will be closed

On 1 January, 73 border crossings on the land border and 12 on the sea border will be closed, and the accession to Schengen will be marked at the Bregana and Gorican border crossings with Slovenia and Hungary, respectively.

Most of the activities relating to the accession were carried out by the Interior Ministry, and Minister Davor Bozinovic noted the importance of the police, “who are getting another important role, the protection of the Schengen Area, and thereby a stronger, more visible and more responsible role in contributing to overall European security.”

He said that on 1 January control on the Hungarian and Slovenian borders would cease but that this would not mean access for illegal migration and crossborder crime.

“Quite the opposite,” he said, adding that “compensatory measures will be implemented” along the internal borders and throughout Croatia, including closer cooperation with neighbouring Schengen police forces and with those of third countries as well as closer exchange of security information.

By entering Schengen, Croatia has been tasked with controlling the longest Schengen land border as well as European security, and we have proved that we can do it, Bozinovic said.