As of January 1st, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) will become the external border of the Schengen zone of the European Union (EU) after Croatia officially becomes part of Schengen.
This means that the large crowds at the border between Croatia and Slovenia (or Croatia and Hungary), which traditionally occurred during holidays or summer vacations, are a thing of the past.
“It will be interesting for travelers who will already be coming to Croatia for the holidays, that is, they will go further east. There will still be border control here at Bregana, and when they return, there will be no more control,” noted Milan Kres, shift manager at Border Crossing Bregana.
Therefore, from January 1st, there will no longer be border policemen in the houses on the Croatian-Slovenian border.
“When they reach the place where the border control is now being carried out, the policeman will not be in the house. The houses will remain for now, while the ramps will be raised and people will be able to pass freely,” he added.
Possible changes should be brought about by the introduction of two new systems in the middle and end of 2023.
These are the Entry exit system (EES) and (European Travel Information and Authorisation System) ETIAS, two systems that will enable border procedures to be carried out in an accelerated manner in order to take biometric data for citizens of third countries and advance travel announcements, which refers to citizens of third countries (including BiH).
Non-EU visitors will be required to apply and pay a 7 euros visa waiver fee before entering a Schengen country.
Passport stamps will be removed. Instead, the system will automatically register when someone enters or leaves an EU country. This will make it easier to flag someone who has passed their time of stay in the EU.
Non-EU citizens who have official residence in an EU country may be exempted from EES and ETIAS, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
