Croatia has adopted the euro this Sunday and has joined the Schengen area of free movement, two milestones for this Balkan country that gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 and entered the European Union in July 2013. At 00:00 (same time on mainland Spain) controls were removed at 73 border crossings of Croatia with Slovenia and Hungary, already converted into internal borders of Schengen, and all Croatian businesses began to accept payments in European currency.
By laying off the kuna, the national currency since 1994, Croatia this Sunday became the twentieth country in the eurozone, out of the 27 that make up the EU.
It also becomes the 27th member of the Schengen area, a vast area of free movement for the 400 million people who share its internal borders, made up mainly of EU countries, plus Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
"It is a time of new beginnings, and there is nowhere in Europe where this is clearer than in Croatia," the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, tweeted this Sunday upon arriving in the Balkan country to celebrate the entry into Schengen and the eurozone.
Von der Leyen has met with the Croatian Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, and the President of Slovenia, Natasa Pirc Musar, at a border post between the two countries, before going to Zagreb.
Von der Leyen, on the left, Natasa Pirc Musar and Andrej Plenkovic, this Sunday at the Bregana border crossing.DAMIR SENCAR (AFP)
During the early hours of the morning, the Croatian Minister of the Interior, Davor Bozinovic, and his Slovenian counterpart, welcomed the new year by jointly raising the barrier of the Bregana-Obrezje pass, the border between the two countries, and toasted with a glass of champagne.
“We have opened the doors to a Europe without borders here.
Tonight we celebrate a new day, a new year, a new Europe with Croatia in Schengen," Bozinovic declared at the brief televised ceremony.
“This act represents more than ending border controls, it is a definitive affirmation of our European identity for which generations of Croats fought and triumphed,” he added.
Simultaneously, a similar act took place at the Croatian-Hungarian border crossing of Gorican-Letenye, with the Croatian Foreign Minister, Gordan Grlic Radman,
The euro was already very present in a tourist country like Croatia, where 80% of bank deposits are in that currency and most of its companies' international clients come from countries that use the single currency.
However, there is some fear among the population of a general rise in prices.
"We will miss our kuna, since prices will increase explosively," Drazen Golemac, a retiree who lives in Zagreb, told Agence France Presse on Saturday.
Instead, most Croats welcome the end of border controls with entry into the Schengen area.
This decision will also strengthen the tourism sector in a country that during 2022 received a number of visitors four times higher than its population of almost 4 million inhabitants.
A total of 73 border posts have closed this Sunday.
In the case of airports, the end of controls will take place on March 26, for technical reasons.
However, Zagreb will restrictively monitor the arrival of clandestine migrants from neighboring countries that are not part of the EU, such as Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro.
Croatia lies in the middle of the Western Balkans route, used by many migrants, as well as arms, drug and human traffickers.
Irregular migration decreased in recent years due to the covid-19 pandemic.
The country registered, however, between January and October 2022 the arrival of some 30,000 migrants in an irregular situation, 150% more than in the same period of the previous year.
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