Authorities in Slovenia, Croatia and Italy have announced tougher border controls, thus joining the list of other Schengen Zone countries that have already introduced similar measures.
The three neighbouring countries initiated frontier checks amid security concerns and the situation in the Middle East.
The government of Slovenia announced that controls would be applied at borders with Hungary and Croatia on Saturday and will last for at least ten days.
There is a need for immediate action to ensure public order and security of our citizens as well as the citizens of the European Union.
Soon after Ljubljana’s announcement, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic introduced similar measures with Slovenia.
He considered that all these temporary measures would have a somewhat more casual character, stressing that this is not hard border control as there is on the border of Croatia and countries outside the borderless area.
Croatian Prime Minister stressed that the reintroduction of border controls is not a sign of mistrust between EU countries but a changed security context in Europe following wars and instability in the southern and eastern neighbourhood.
However, such controls will not resemble the frontier checks that were effective before Croatia joined the borderless area of Schengen, according to the Croatian Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic.
The Schengen Code allows member states to reinstate internal control in specific emergency situations, but this does not mean a return to the border controls that existed before entering the Schengen area.
The Italian government also announced that starting from Saturday, it would suspend an open-border agreement with Slovenia for a period of ten days.
War between Israel and Hamas, as well as irregular border crossing attempts, led several countries in the EU to reintroduce border controls.
Due to “current migration pressure”, Denmark’s Ministry of Justice recently announced that controls at the country’s border with Germany would be prolonged for an additional six months.
At the same time, the German Interior Ministry, through a statement, announced that temporary frontier checks would be initiated at the borders of Czechia, Poland and Switzerland on October 16.
Austria, Poland and Czechia also announced that they would prolong controls on their common borders with Slovakia until November 2.
In a coordinated way, authorities in Czechia, Austria and Poland introduced border controls with Slovakia on October 4, which were set to remain effective until October 13. However, the three countries decided to prolong such measures until November.
