European Commission approves Croatia's Schengen accession

Thanks! Unfortunately, the press release doesn’t say anything about the further timeline, so it could mean anything. But a good step, certainly.

Also, once it all goes into effect, it will be interesting to see how quickly the AIP and the practice will adapt, i.e. if international flights to and from any Croatian aerodromes will go “flawlessly”.

That would certainly give new life to aerodromes such as Vrsar, Hvar, Medulin and Unije (the latter of which, I have read recently, is close to closing completely).

Great news. To take Croatia off the “Non Schengen” list will definitly make flights to and from it much easier from within the EU.

I guess due the proximity of further non-Schengen and Non EU states they will however maintain AOE status on many of their airports… which will be vital for flights from Switzerland, the UK and most of the Balkans.

I hope this doesn’t produce the French effect (one of many threads on what happened there) in Croatia.

I don’t think so. Zagreb, Osijek, Rijeka, Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar and Pula have regular airline traffic to/from non-EU/non Schengen countries.

And even Brac and Losinj have some amount of traffic to and from outside the Schengen+EU area. But yes, they might become “PPR” for such flights…

However, all this is still some (unknown) time away.

That’s good news! Coming from the EU (Austria), I found the immigration checks this summer at Pula Airport somehow ridiculously serious and strict, including an unfriendly face. Even leaving Croatia from Losinj to Italy came with a very serious check again, except for the fact that the officer was friendly this time. The police in Austria and Italy just made a very quick look into the passport, we exchanged 2-3 friendly words, and that was it. Why does Croatia makes such a big deal out of the passport checks?! Because they want to be a role model before joining the Schengen-Area?

Nobody is happier than me with this news. However, the timeline can vary but definitely it won’t happen before 2nd half of 2020. The main two reasons are: Croatia leads EU in 1st half of 2020 and can’t put topics related to itself on the agenda and Bulgaria and Romania have been waiting in the same status for years, probably expecting to be admitted at the same time if not earlier.

Frans wrote:

such a big deal out of the passport checks?!

I think in a lot of societies (I’m not making a judgement on this particular one), some types of “official” jobs are perceived as privileged and very important, and so people doing these jobs sustain that by having everything look very official. Even a stamp will be done very carefully and solemn gesture :)

In some other places, there can be an instilled suspicion of the people entering the country. I find that’s the other reason for them to act officially.

At smaller places, where people realise the risk is very low (and so is supervision), common sense prevails and people tend to be very friendly (UK, who’ll systematically come when you carry a passenger with a “suspicious” passport (e.g. Lebanon), but are nothing but friendly / small airfields elsewhere who might even call you and say they won’t be coming, so “don’t bother to stop”)

Good news for sailors :) this will end up the Croatian “Racket” on sailing boats – my brother ran out of wind once inbound from italy, ended up being stationary for a couple of hours, and got fined 300 euros for “not coming directly to the port” (AIS tracking – ship’s Flightradar24 – printout as a proof!).

When you live on a sailing boat, 300 euros can carry you a couple weeks or even a month!

If Croatia lost immigration or customs at any of its nice airports, it would be tragic for flying, because it is one of the most attractive parts of Europe. Also its police are totally pragmatic: one officer does everything.