Slovenia has decided to send more troops to its border with Croatia, just weeks after increasing police presence in a specific area along the border and refusing to rule out a full reintroduction of police checks at the EU’s internal border.
Slovenia deployed extra officers along the main corridors where migrants enter the country on Wednesday, a move Interior Minister Boštjan Poklukar said was aimed at detecting people smugglers and cracking down on cross-border crime.
“These are not internal [border] checks. These are compensatory measures,” he said.
However, while Poklukar did not rule out the possibility of a full reintroduction of police checks, he confirmed that it was “not on the table at the moment”.
“I never thought that I would close the western border with Italy during my first term as interior minister, but I did during COVID-19. So never say never,” he said.
Additional police patrols will not be deployed at the border but further inland, particularly along the “most critical parts of the border”, where data shows the greatest increase in irregular migration. Police will also stop suspicious vehicles.
The government is aware that effective migration management is not only achieved at Slovenia’s internal borders but also in cooperation with the wider region and the countries of origin, he added.
As for the agreements between the EU border agency Frontex and the Western Balkan countries, Poklukar confirmed that Slovenia has high expectations..
“These agreements enable Frontex to be deployed to the region to support national border authorities in border protection,” Poklukar said.
Croatia reacted coolly to the announcement, with Interior Minister Davorin Božinović saying that the increased police presence did not mean the end of Schengen, adding that the measure had been imposed because of the presence of smugglers.
He told the Croatian press agency Hina that cross-border traffic would continue to be regulated according to Schengen rules, i.e. without stopping vehicles.
Slovenia’s move comes as the number of migrants apprehended in the country tripled in the first eight months of the year, causing unease among local residents living along the border, particularly in the municipality of Brežice.
Migration is also becoming a political issue for the government, as the centre-right opposition has put it back on the political agenda by calling for increased border security and the shelving of plans to remove the border fence.
(Sebastijan R. Maček | sta.si)
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