Schengen Area: Croatia plans to join until 2020
According to the European Commission:
“The free movement of persons is a fundamental right guaranteed by the EU to its citizens. It entitles every EU citizen to travel, work and live in any EU country without special formalities. Schengen cooperation enhances this freedom by enabling citizens to cross internal borders without being subjected to border checks. The border-free Schengen Area guarantees free movement to more than 400 million EU citizens, as well as to many non-EU nationals, businessmen, tourists or other persons legally present on the EU territory.”
The area is the world largest border-free zone, 26 countries are part of this visa-free zone, making it 6 European countries that are not yet part of the area.
Currently, the countries that are not part of the area are: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Ireland, Romania and the United Kingdom. Also some countries that are non-EU States have joined the area, such as, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Croatia’s place in relation to Schengen
Croatia has recently become a member of the European Union, since 1 July 2013. As this change is quite recent, the country is still on the list of EU States that are not yet part of the zone. However, this is about to change, and this change is going to apply at the end of 2020.
To join the area, the country has to follow a few requirements, and those are:
- take responsibility for controlling the external borders on behalf of the other Schengen States and for issuing uniform Schengen visas
- efficiently cooperate with law enforcement agencies in other Schengen States in order to maintain a high level of security once border controls between Schengen countries are abolished
- apply the common set of Schengen rules (the so-called “Schengen acquis”), such as controls of land, sea and air borders (airports), issuing of visas, police cooperation and protection of personal data
- connect to and use the SIS.
Terezija Gras, state secretary in the Interior Ministry, stated that Croatia’s also hopes that in 2020 the government will also achieve entry to the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, which is the waiting room for adopting euros.
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