Croatia started 2023 with a new currency and as part of the European Union’s free movement area. This Sunday (1st), the country formally abandoned the kuna, becoming the 20th member of the bloc to enter the euro zone, and joined the Schengen area, along with 26 other countries.
The Schengen area is a vast region of more than 400 million Europeans who can travel freely, without domestic border controls. Most of its members also make up the EU, but there are also countries like Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
“There is no place in Europe where the ideal [europeu] be truer than here in Croatia”, wrote Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, on Twitter, during a visit to the country.
She met Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and Slovenian President Pirc Musar at a post on the border between the two countries. “It’s a day that will be remembered in the history books,” said Von der Leyen, joining Plenkovic, who also referred to the changes as a milestone.
“If there are historic moments, special moments that should give us great honor and when we witness the achievement of a state’s strategic objectives, this is one of those days,” said the premier.
Croatia gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 after a war in which around 20,000 people died. Since July 2013, it has been a member of the EU. According to Plenkovic, entering the euro zone and the Schengen area represent “two strategic objectives to achieve greater integration” in the bloc.
Von der Leyen and Plenkovic posed paying for coffees with euro banknotes, and Croatian Central Bank President Boris Vujcic pulled out euro banknotes at an ATM in the country’s capital Zagreb.
The gestures are symbolic, as the bloc’s currency was already widely used among Croats — 80% of bank deposits are made in euros, and most of its companies’ international clients come from countries that use the single European currency.
The change, however, displeased part of the Croats. “We’re going to miss our kuna, because prices are going to skyrocket,” lamented retired Drazen Golemac, 63, in a statement to the AFP news agency. The current crisis, accentuated by the War in Ukraine, caused Croatia to register inflation of 13.5% in November, while the average in the euro zone was 10%.
The end of border controls as a result of entering the Schengen area is seen with more optimism. The decision should strengthen the tourism sector — Croatia received in 2022 a number of visitors four times higher than its population of almost 4 million inhabitants.
In all, 73 border posts stopped carrying out checks as of Sunday. At airports, control remains until March 26, due to technical adaptations.
Zagreb must also continue to restrictively monitor the arrival of irregular migrants from neighboring non-EU countries such as Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro. Croatia is in the middle of the Western Balkans route, used by many migrants, as well as arms, drug and people smugglers.
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