Tougher EU checks cause traffic delay on borders between Croatia, Slovenia on eve of Easter

Newly-introduced tougher checks on the EU's external borders produced long lines of vehicles on Friday, the eve of the Easter holiday, at Croatia's Bregena border crossing with Slovenia.

The delay made many holidaymakers from Austria, Germany and Switzerland complain. Most of them have been waiting for hours for passing through the crossing.

A driver from Switzerland said has spend more than two hours in queues waiting to head to home for the Easter and didn't know how long he would continue to wait for.

Some passengers got off the buses lying on the ground to have a rest, while some others lost their patience and decided to cross the border crossing on foot with their heavy luggage.

Traffic chaos have staged on the borders between Croatia, a non-member of the Schengen area and a member Slovenia since EU introduced a new regulation on stricter Schengen border controls on April 7. According to local media, vehicles queues lined more than 10 kilometers during worse time.

The Croatian government is trying to resolve the issue together with the European Commission and Slovenia, but no progress has made so far.

Some Croatian tourist agencies have cancelled their one day excursions to Slovenia, local media said. Analysts were worried about the negative affect to Croatia's tourism, which accounting for more than 18 percent of its GDP. Endit