The barbed wire fence on the border between Slovenia and Croatia will stay throughout the summer.
The barriers on the border with Croatia, set up last year due to the danger of illegal crossings of migrants, will remain until further notice because the situation with refugees in Greece and Macedonia is still unstable, announced on Wednesday the Slovenian government, responding to inquiries about when the wire fence would be removed, since the Balkan migration route was closed in early March and the transit of refugees has almost completely stopped, reports Večernji List on May 25, 2016.
Since the beginning of March this year, when the refuge route was closed, just two small incidents on the Slovenian border took place, with small groups of migrants who tried to enter Slovenia. “All further decisions about the technical barriers will depend on the developments”, announced on Wednesday the Office of Public Relations of the Slovenian government.
Although the European Union made an agreement with Turkey about stopping the refugee wave towards Europe, and a barrier was put up on the Macedonian-Greek border, Ljubljana warns that the situation in Macedonia has not yet been fully stabilized, that there are still about 50,000 refugees in Greece who hope to reach Central Europe and their final destinations, and that the inflow of refugees from Turkey to Greece has not been completely stopped.
According to the information of the Slovenian government, the common land border with Croatia is 671 kilometres long, and currently 176 kilometres of wire fence have been constructed, although in some sections it has been replaced by a metal panel fence, particularly where it passes through villages and areas which are commonly visited by tourists.
Office of the Slovenian Government said that the border between Serbia and Hungary, according to their data, was still being illegally crossed by several hundred people a day, which is a proof that physical protection measures against illegal entry of migrants and refugees were not enough.
Since last autumn, more than half a million refugees passed through Slovenia on their way to Austria, Germany and the Scandinavian countries, but very few requested asylum in Slovenia. Slovenia has recently accepted first two smaller groups of refugees from Greece and Italy, as part of the agreed relocation of migrants from crowded camps in these countries.
