Slovenia calls for lifting controls on border with Austria

Slovenia expressed its strong opposition on Wednesday to the European Commission's recommendation for another six-month extension of temporary controls on the border with Austria, holding that the measure was baseless, the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) said.

Earlier, Slovenian interior minister Vesna Gyorkos Znidar addressed a letter to the European Commission on April 21 in which she opposed the extension, justifying her position by pointing out the low number of illegal border crossings.

Only 76 foreigners were returned from Austria to Slovenia last year while only 11 have so far been returned this year, the ministry insisted in a press release, according to the STA.

"The negligible number of illegal crossings of the internal Slovenian border proves that our measures are effective."

It added that EU member states should be focused on implementing measures within their territories and not at their borders, and said the external Schengen border between Slovenia and Croatia was well protected.

According to the ministry, border controls between Slovenia and Austria are causing long delays, in particular at Karavanke tunnel, and the situation is expected to worsen during the coming summer holidays.

The supervision hampers the free movement of people, causes economic damage, and affects the cooperation of the border regions, the press release said, adding that temporary passport checks had failed to produce relevant conclusions regarding security risks. Endit