However, despite getting the green light from the European Commission, Croatia is still far from joining the Schengen Area. This is just an intermediate step in the process of the country’s integration into the Schengen scheme, said State Secretary at the Slovenian Ministry of the Interior Sandi Čurin in response to the Commission’s assessment. The evaluation of Croatia is not over.

Slovenia expects that in the future Croatia will satisfy all of the conditions, both technical and legal, including respect for the rule of law, in order to join the Schengen Area, wrote representatives of the office of Prime Minister Marjan Šarec. They emphasised that Croatia will have to demonstrate its ability to provide effective protection of the external border and thus provide security for the entire EU. According to Šarec, Croatia will still have to carry out numerous measures in order to be capable of providing sustainable and effective management of the EU’s external borders and thereby fully satisfy the technical criteria.