ZAGREB, June 7, 2018 – The cooperation between Slovenia and Croatia, as a potential Schengen Area member, in controlling illegal migration is good but the barbed wire along the border is staying, Slovenian Interior Minister Vesna Gjerkes Žnidar said, adding that Slovenia is controlling the migration situation on the Schengen border.
“Croatia has undertaken numerous measures that are necessary and we have good cooperation at political and operational level, but as a candidate for Schengen, it must control the migration flows on the EU’s external border, which is a big challenge,” she told Slovenia’s Delo daily of Thursday.
The minister said she and her Austrian counterpart recently discussed how to help Croatia if necessary because the external EU border controlled by Croatia “is still too permeable and too many migrants are still coming to Schengen.”
That is why it would be a wrong move to remove the barbed wire and barriers set up during the 2015 migration crisis, she said. “It would be a signal that the border is open, which is unacceptable and would certainly cause mass pressure on border.”
Slovenian citizens’ right to security is a constitutional category, so it is necessary to prevent illegal migration, she said, adding that illegal migration “will be a big political and economic challenge for Slovenia’s new government and it is necessary to clearly define the limits of our absorption capacity for asylum seekers.”
