Slovenian Interior Minister Dragutin Mate dismissed fears Thursday about security in the expanded Schengen borderless zone, going into an informal meeting with his EU counterparts confident that the new Schengen members were able to provide security for the block.
"The first results have given us a good picture. Slovenia has stopped more than 1,700 people on the list in the Schengen Information System, confiscated over 140 cars stolen in the EU and checked over 5m people from September until now," Mate told the press.
According to him, the next few months will see serious discussions to see whether there are any problems, but current evaluations show everybody is well prepared. "The decision on the expansion of the Schengen zone was ultimately political, but it was only taken because all countries fulfiled the criteria," he said.
Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini was similarly optimistic, saying that since the Schengen zone was expanded law enforcement authorities got a large number of tips leading to the arrest of hundreds of suspects or preventing suspects from entering in the first place.
Security in the expanded zone (nine new countries joined in late December) has moved up the agenda after police forces reported numerous breaches of the zone by illegal immigrants.
Polish police for example detained 59 Chechen refugees who attempted to cross illegally into Germany just days after passport-free travel was expanded to Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta.
Yet Frattini attributes the problems to the lack of harmonisation between national legislation. This is why the EU needs a common asylum policy, he said.
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