by Valentina Salcedo
The interior ministers of Slovenia, Italy and Croatia, Boštjan Poklukar, Matteo Piantedosi and Davor Božinović, respectively, met in Trieste, this Thursday to discuss the Western Balkans migration route, reintroduction of police checks on internal Schengen borders and efforts to strengthen cooperation. The border controls have been extended for another 20 days.
Border controls, minister Piantedosi in Trieste: today is the day of the summit with the ministers of Slovenia and Croatia. The front burner discussion is the activity carried out so far and the possibility of a further extension of the Schengen suspension.
“With the decisions taken today, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia aim to maximize controls and filtering activities along the Balkan route. Now a technical comparison between the three countries is starting to try to apply these measures effectively and also to implement them,” stated the governor of Friuli Venezia Giulia Massimiliano Fedriga after the trilateral Italy-Slovenia-Croatia summit which was held this morning in Trieste, convened by the Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi who previously also chaired the provincial committee dedicated to order and public safety.
A summit which saw the participation of the ministers of Slovenia Boštjan Poklukar, of Croatia Davor Božinovic, and of governor Fedriga.
“The restoration of the borders was adopted with some regret for us, for our Slovenian and Croatian friends and other countries, but it is necessary,” said minister Piantedosi in a conference after the meeting.
“We discussed – he continued – the data from the first 10 days of checks and their importance. We checked around 19 thousand people, with 10 thousand vehicles, tracking down 300 foreign citizens at the entrance, subject to the rejection regime, but above all arresting around ten people for the specific crime of aiding and abetting illegal immigration. And there were 35 people reported for various crimes.”
During the meeting it was decided to intensify border control by making the presence of mixed brigades structural, to establish permanent coordination centers managed by the police forces and to identify a stable way of sharing the problems that the three States are facing address in this geographical quadrant.
