October the 19th, 2023 – Neighbouring Slovenia has been rather critical of Schengen’s passport-less, border-less rules, and has re-introduced controls at the Slovenian-Croatian border.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Slovenian Ministry of the Interior is currently preparing a notification for the European Commission (EC), in accordance with Schengen rules.
“This is a proposal for a temporary measure due to the increased terrorist threat level assessment across many EU countries,” Slovenian Minister of the Interior Boštjan Poklukar explained to N1, emphasised that he will try to make life as simple as possible for people who have to cross the Slovenian-Croatian border, as well as other borders into Slovenia, every day.
Slovenian security expert Boštjan Perne believes that the re-introduction of controls at the Croatian border will not bother Slovenians, who are happy to go and spend time in various places in Croatia during their weekends.
“Schengen has failed as an idea”
When Slovenia introduces internal controls along the Croatian border and that with Hungary, and also with Italy on the Italian-Slovenian border, it will be impossible to cross the border into Slovenia freely via any of those four nations, at least for a while, reports N1 Slovenia.
“The Schengen area was one of the main ideas of European unity and was established so that we could cross borders freely without knowing that we’re crossing from one country into another. It was done to give us the feeling that we’re all one. But it’s not like that anymore. Schengen has failed as an idea. Maybe we won’t feel like we’re crossing national borders like we used to, but this isn’t going to be a free border crossing anymore. That’s over with,” said Boštjan Perne for N1.
Croatian Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic: We’re monitoring the situation
Yesterday, the Croatian Ministry of the Interior (MUP) didn’t want to comment on the announced deployment of border police on the Slovenian-Croatian border. “We’re monitoring the development of the situation and, depending on what unfolds, we’ll adjust the police system,” they stated very briefly from MUP.
Italy also introduces border controls at the Italian-Slovenian border
Due to increased migratory pressure, as well as due to the alarming situation in the Middle East, several countries have introduced or decided to extend controls at internal Schengen borders Italy is one of them. It had previously informed Slovenia that due to the altered situation across Europe and in the Middle East, it planned on re-introducing border controls with Slovenia.
Austria makes the same move
Austria, which introduced controls on the border with both Slovenia and Hungary back in 2015 at the height of the refugee crisis, informed the European Commission about the new extension of their controls on Monday as well. As things stand, they’ll begin on November the 12th this year and end only on May the 11th next year.
Temporary controls at the internal borders of the Schengen area can only be introduced by countries in the event of a serious threat to public order or internal security, of which they must first notify Brussels.
