Croatia welcomes the New Year as a fully integrated member of the EU – WSOC TV
ZAGREB, Croatia — (AP) — At midnight Saturday, Croatia switched to Europe’s common currency, the euro, and eliminated dozens of border crossings to join the world’s largest passport-free travel zone.
It marked a new beginning for the small Balkan nation of 4 million people that drew international attention three decades ago as the site of a brutal war that left almost a quarter of its economy in ruins.
Joining Europe’s Schengen zone without ID checks means that Croats will now be among the nearly 420 million people who can roam freely in its 27 member states without passports for work or leisure.
The introduction of the euro will also offer Croatia advantages arising from deeper financial ties with the other 19 users of the currency and with the European Central Bank. It will also make travel and business easier, removing the hassle of exchanging currencies for Croats going abroad and for the tens of thousands of tourists who visit their country each year for business or to enjoy its beautiful Adriatic coast.
While revelers all over Croatia took to the streets to welcome the New Year, Minister of the Interior Davor Božinović was at the Bregan border crossing with Slovenia to wish the last travelers who checked their passports the best of luck.
Since 2007, Slovenia has been part of the Schengen zone and has the task of guarding its external borders.
The task will now be taken up by Croatia, which will continue to apply strict border controls on its eastern borders with its non-EU neighbours, Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro.
“We opened our doors to Europe without borders. This goes beyond the abolition of border controls, it is the final affirmation of our European identity”, said Božinović after he accompanied his Slovenian colleague Sanja Ajanović-Hovnik for the last time watching the raising of the ramps at the Bregana border crossing.
Stipica Mandić, a 72-year-old professional driver, shares the same opinion and says that freedom of movement without long waits at border crossings is his personal dream and the reason why he left home on New Year’s Eve and drove 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) to Bregana. in order to make it happen.
“I spent years of my life waiting at border crossings, so tonight I came here to witness this moment, the moment after which I will not wait anymore,” he said.
Around the same time, just after midnight, the Croatian finance minister and central bank governor walked to an ATM in the capital Zagreb to withdraw euro notes and symbolically return the old Croatian national currency, the kuna, to history.
Croatia joined the EU in 2013, but in order to introduce the euro, it had to meet a number of strict economic conditions, including a stable exchange rate, controlled inflation and healthy public spending.
The Croatian kuna and the euro will be in dual use for cash payments for only 14 days, but as people shop after the January holidays, they will only receive euros in change.
The events on New Year’s Eve were described by many Croats as proof that their country had ended its difficult journey towards European trends 31 years after it fought a war for independence from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia in which 20,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.
“We dreamed about this and I’m happy that we lived to see it happen,” said Zlatko Leko, a resident of the port city of Split in the south of the country. “I hope this means that we are finally part of Europe.”
Elenmari Pletikos-Solon in Zagreb agreed: “We were already part of Europe, but the breaking down of borders and the transition to the euro is the final confirmation that we are fully integrated” into the European Union.
“I’m really happy. This will make many things in our lives much easier,” she added.
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