Slovenia Removes Border Checks with Croatia and Hungary
Slovenia decides to lift temporary border controls at its borders with Croatia and Hungary, replacing them with other surveillance measures, following the European Commission's call to gradually abolish internal border checks in the Schengen area.
Slovenia's Ministry of the Interior announced the removal of temporary border checks at the borders with Croatia and Hungary. These checks were introduced in October 2023 in response to the situation in the Middle East following the Hamas attack on Israel and similar measures by Italy.
The ministry stated that instead of border checks, the police will use other forms of surveillance at the state border. This move will also improve traffic flow on roads that are already congested without additional inspections.
The decision comes after the European Commission urged nine Schengen area countries, including Slovenia and its neighbors Italy and Austria, to gradually abolish border controls. The new Migration and Asylum Pact, which comes into force on June 12, will also help create conditions for the gradual abolition of controls at internal borders.
However, the Ministry of the Interior in Ljubljana also reported that the bill on implementing the pact in Slovenia will not be adopted by that deadline, as the previous government did not prepare the relevant documents in time.
Meanwhile, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt rejected the European Commission's request to cancel internal border checks on June 4. In April, the Administrative Court of the German city of Koblenz declared a border check on the border between Luxembourg and Germany illegal. This is not the first such case in Germany: courts have previously questioned the legality of checks on the border with Austria.
