Zagreb Jan. 1 (U.S.): At midnight Saturday, Croatia switched to Europe’s common currency, the euro, and removed dozens of border checkpoints to join the world’s largest passport-free travel zone.
This marks a fresh start for the small Balkan nation of 4 million that captured international attention three decades ago as the site of a brutal war that left nearly a quarter of its economy in ruins, the Associated Press reported.
Joining Europe’s identity-free Schengen area means Croats will now be among the nearly 420 million people free to roam its 27 member states without passports for work or leisure.
Likewise, adopting the euro would provide Croatia with the benefits arising from deeper financial relationships with 19 other users of the currency and with the European Central Bank. It will also make traveling and doing business easier, removing the hassle of exchanging currency for Croats traveling abroad and for the tens of thousands of tourists who visit their country every year on business or to enjoy the stunning Adriatic coast.
As revelers across Croatia take to the streets to celebrate the New Year, the country’s interior minister, Davor Bozinovic, was at the Bregana border crossing with Slovenia to wish good luck to the last travelers checking their passports there.
Slovenia has been part of the Schengen Area and is mandated to protect its external borders since 2007.
Now, Croatia will take over, continuing to enforce strict border controls on its eastern border with its non-EU neighbours, Bosnia and Serbia and Montenegro.
“We have opened our doors to a Europe without borders. This goes beyond the removal of border controls, it is the ultimate affirmation of our European identity,” Bozinovic said after watching the ramps at the Bregana border crossing being raised for the last time, accompanied by his Slovenian counterpart Sanja Ajanović-Hovnik.
Stipeka Mandic, a 72-year-old professional driver, shared the same sentiment and said the freedom of movement without long waits at border crossings was his personal dream and the reason he left his New Year’s Eve party at home and drove 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) to Bregana to see It comes true.
“I have spent years of my life waiting at border checkpoints, so I came here tonight to witness this moment, the moment after which I will not wait any longer,” he said.
Around the same time, just after midnight, Croatia’s finance minister and central bank governor headed to an automated teller machine in the capital, Zagreb, to withdraw euro notes and send the old Croatian national currency, the kuna, into history.
Croatia joined the European Union in 2013, but to adopt the euro, the country had to meet a set of stringent economic conditions, including having a stable exchange rate, inflation control, and sound public spending.
The HRK and EUR will be used dually for cash payments for 14 days only, but since people are post-holiday shopping in January, they will only receive EUR in change.
Many Croats described the New Year’s Eve developments as evidence that their country has completed a difficult journey into the European mainstream 31 years after it fought a war for independence from Serb-held Yugoslavia, in which 20,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.
“We used to dream about this and I’m glad we lived to see it happen,” said Zlatko Leko, a resident of the coastal city of Split in the south of the country. “I hope this means that we are finally part of Europe.”
Elenmari Pletikos-Solon agreed in Zagreb: “We were already part of Europe, but dismantling borders and switching to the euro is the final confirmation that we are fully integrated” with the EU.
“I am really happy. It will make many things in our life much easier.”
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