Plenkovic and Kurz Agree on Free Movement Between Croatia and Austria

As tportal writes on the 9th of June, 2020, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has agreed with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz that Austria would lift restrictions on free movement between Croatia and Austria.

Although Austrians were the most frequent visitors to Croatia last week after Slovenes, Austria hasn’t yet officially approved travel to Croatia, nor has the country lifted restrictions on Croatian citizens crossing the border, as they did with their neighbouring countries with the exception of Italy.

Prime Minister Plenkovic announced that this would change soon.

He announced on his Twitter profile that he had talked with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz about preparations for the next European Council meeting and the situation with the coronavirus epidemic. They agreed that the government in Vienna would make a decision tomorrow on lifting restrictions on the movement of people between Croatia and Austria from mid-June onwards.

”Croatia is open to Austrian tourists, they know it and they’re coming,” Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said on Friday.

”At the moment, behind the Slovenes, the Austrians are our most frequent visitors. Croatia is open in that sense, the Austrians know that and they’re coming,” said Božinovic after the video conference of the European interior ministers.

“I think that Croatia is so recognised, so attractive and known by our neighbours and EU member states that I don’t see what will prevent them from coming to Croatia,” Bozinovic said, adding that Zagreb was now engaging in bilateral talks with Vienna.

He reported that a video conference showed that there was political will within the EU at the ministerial level to open internal borders around June the 15th, but that epidemiological situations still had to be monitored because the pandemic isn’t at the same stage in all countries.

As for the EU’s external borders, the Croatian minister pointed out that a coordinated approach would be applied in this regard ‘given that coronavirus infection is very intense in various parts of the world, but that a certain exception can always be made for those countries which have a favourable epidemiological situation, especially in the closer European neighbourhood.

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