Slovenian minister skeptical about Croatia's accession to Schengen zone

Commenting on a meeting of EU ministers of the interior held last Friday under Portugal's chairmanship, Hojs said that the meeting only took note of the European Commission's statement that Croatia had met the technical requirements for entry into the Schengen zone, but that a debate on the matter was not opened and that he personally did not expect Portugal to put the issue on the agenda by the end of its term as the Council of the EU chair.

Croatia is already strongly lobbying for entry into the Schengen zone and claims that it has the situation under control, Hojs said, adding that he himself was not convinced of that even though he did not "want to spread pessimism" and did not have reservations about reopening the issue during Slovenia's presidency of the EU in the second half of the year.

Slovenia supports Croatia's accession to the Schengen zone once the country meets all conditions but even though Croatia has to a large extent removed shortcomings in border control, it is difficult to judge the political support among member-states, Hojs said.

He cited unofficial reports saying that a number of countries, including the Netherlands and France, have reservations about Croatia concerning border control and treatment of migrants.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said in an interview with the Politico news website published on Monday that it was reasonable to expect that Croatia would enter the eurozone and the Schengen area by the second half of 2024.

"The idea is to do both — accession to Schengen and the eurozone — by the end of this government’s term, so the second half of 2024," Plenkovic said. "It’s tough, but reasonable."

The European Commission said in 2019 that Croatia had fulfilled all the technical requirements for entry into the Schengen zone, and this should now be endorsed by other member states. Romania and Bulgaria have been waiting for this to happen for years.