The Croatian Customs Directorate on Saturday dismissed media reports on the ban on the import of textbooks from Serbia as untrue, rejecting the allegations of unprofessional conduct of the customs service.

Croatian media quoted the Serbian minister for the diaspora as saying recently that his delegation had been denied permission to take into Croatia 300 Cyrillic textbooks for the first year of primary school and had been threatened with a fine of €1,000. The minister said that they had never encountered such problems in any country except in Croatia.

It is not true that the import of books was prohibited, but the party in question was advised to follow the standard procedure for the declaration of goods in accordance with EU customs legislation, the Customs Directorate said.

It said that the person concerned was transporting 260 books without customs documents and accompanying certificates to prove the nature and purpose of the cross-border movement of goods, which he declared only orally. It added that after customs rules were explained to him, he decided to return to Serbia.

All the allegations from the media reports on this case are untrue because the legal procedure for the import of books for minority communities is indisputable and such imports are carried out in compliance with customs rules that equally apply to everyone, the Customs Directorate said.