The President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, on Friday 7 June, praised Croatia's efforts since its accession to the European Union to join the Schengen Area on the free movement of persons and the euro area.
“I would like us, under our mandate, to be able to make a proposal for Croatia's accession to the Schengen area”, said Mr Juncker in Zagreb after a meeting with Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković. “We have wasted too much time and I would like the EU Council to react positively”, he added.
Also hoping for a positive assessment of his country's progress in this area before the end of the Commission's mandate, Mr Plenković assured that Croatia was making good use of European financial assistance to strengthen border surveillance, as well as police cooperation with neighbouring countries.
Eurozone. On the euro area, the President of the Commission considered that Zagreb was “well prepared” to integrate the exchange rate mechanism (‘ERM II’), the eve of accession to the euro area. He praised the Croatian authorities' ability to reduce public debt.
From around 83.7% of GDP in 2015, Croatian public debt is expected to fall to 70.9% in 2019 and 67.6% in 2020, according to the Commission's recent spring economic forecasts.
The Croatian government hopes that, for both Schengen and ERM II membership, this will be done in 2020, when Croatia will take over the EU Council Presidency in the first half of next year. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)