📋 Tender Overview
As for the security context, after Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel, the Prime Minister said that Croatian services have increased their vigilance and are monitoring the security situation in detail.
In Croatia at the moment, he pointed out, there is nothing that should cause a sense of insecurity or threat in any country.
Responding to a question about what these new border controls would look like, Plenkovic said he had not yet seen Slovenia's decision, but added that in principle all these temporary measures have a more casual character.
"It is not the establishment of hard border control, as for example on the border between Croatia and countries that are outside schengen," he said.
The introduction of temporary controls, the prime minister said in response to a question, does not mean distrust between member states, stressing that the global security context should be looked at in the past year and a half since the beginning of Russia's aggression against Ukraine, which has caused a huge refugee wave.
In addition to this brutal aggression, which is still ongoing, there has now been a Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and potentially major regional instability and escalation with other actors.
This all represents a very serious security situation in Europe's nearest neighbourhood, both eastern and southern.
"Such a circumstance leads us to the conclusion that cooperation in the security sense, and then in the internal affairs and Schengen sectors, must be raised to a high level," he stressed.
Therefore, he considers that this is not a matter of trust, but the fruit of decisions under the pressures of circumstances in which different governments find themselves.
It is not good to be malicious, especially in times of crisis, when it is very important to describe things realistically, the prime minister said, referring to the thesis on one television about "the collapse of the greatest success of the Government".
If we had not entered Schengen at the beginning of the year, and before Romania and Bulgaria, which have been negotiating much longer than Croatia, it is a real question if we would have entered, in these circumstances, he added.
The benefits of joining Schengen, he emphasized, were very much felt already in this tourist season that is behind us.
