ZAGREB, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Croatia is ready to enter Schengen Area and it has proved that with a quality border-monitoring, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic said after a midnight tour of the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday.
Croatia is the latest member of the European Union but not yet a member of the Schengen Area. Joining the Schengen Area is one of the strategic goals of the current government. Government officials claim that Croatia will meet the technical criteria to enter the Schengen Area by the end of 2018.
"My impressions about the border protection are excellent," the president said after touring the border between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, state news agency HINA reported.
The two countries share a 932-kilometer border and recently the number of immigrants attempts to cross Croatia's border illegally has increased rapidly. Currently there are around 4,000 migrants and refuges in Bosnia and Herzegovina, most of them near the border with Croatia. Migrants are trying to reach western European countries and Croatia is just a transit state for most of them.
President Grabar-Kitarovic believes that the problem of migration and illegal border crossing attempts will continue, but she said that the Croatian police is dealing with migrants in line with EU legislation.
