The Slovenian and Croatian interior ministers, Ales Hojs and Davor Bozinovic, met in the Slovenian resort town of Portoroz on Wednesday for the talks on Slovenia's presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2021, as well as current topics including cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The two ministers met on the fringes of a Brdo-Brijuni Initiative meeting to discuss how to facilitate travelling and what the introduction of the digital COVID certificate meant in that regard.

Croatia has already started issuing those certificates which facilitate crossing the border and they are being implemented because the same programme has already been launched in several EU countries.

Bozinovic informed Hojs that more than 100,000 digital certificate had been issued to Croatian citizens since the start of June and that Croatia is ready to recognise such certificates from all EU countries.

An estimated 8,000-10,0000 people have entered Croatia with digital certificates so far, mostly from Poland, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and Germany, the Croatian minister added.

Hojs said that Slovenia would soon be introducing that solution too for its citizens, which should facilitate crossing the Croatian-Slovenian border.

He added that a special border crossing would be opened for migrant workers commuting to and from Brežice and Krško in an effort to facilitate their crossing the border. The crossing will only be available to Croatian and Slovenian workers. He believes that crossing the border will generally be much faster once digital certificates are introduced.

He added that he and Bozinovic spoke about Slovenia’s presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of this year, particularly with reference to the pact on migration and asylum as well as the new Schengen acquis which will be on the agenda again at the next informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in mid-June in Brdo pri Kranju.

In reference to the problem of illegal migrants, Hojs said that the information Croatia has, clearly indicates that it has stopped the migrant flow on the Balkan route, particularly on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

That is why Slovenia strongly advocates Croatia’s admission to the Schengen area.

Minister Bozinovic added that Slovenia’s police have registered a 26% decrease in the rate of disclosing illegal migrants while the number of illegal migrants Croatia has stopped has increased by 4%.

“That means that Croatia is protecting the external EU border and Croatia’s accession to the Schengen area is in Slovenia’s interest too,” said Bozinovic.