Slovenia Aims to Strengthen Schengen Area as Part of EU Council Presidency

STA, 17 May 2021 - Interior Minister Aleš Hojs took part in a virtual session of the Schengen Forum on Monday, saying that Slovenia as the presiding country of the EU Council in the second part of the year would make an effort for strengthening the Schengen Area.

The Schengen Forum is a platform with which the European Commission wants to deepen the political and strategic debate ahead of the presentation of a strategy on the future of the Schengen Area, scheduled for the beginning of June.

The participants of the second meeting of the forum discussed the best possible ways for undisrupted functioning of the Schengen Area while maintaining and further enhancing its security component, the Slovenian Interior Ministry said.

It added that the main tools for that were timely and effective implementation of the existing legal obligations on the one hand, and implementation of new technologies and innovation on the other.

Hojs welcomed the continuation of the debate and noted that effective and enhanced functioning of the Schengen Area would be one of the priorities of Slovenia's EU presidency.

"We support the European Commission in its efforts to establish a better functioning Schengen system, which would be responsive to possible challenges and crisis situations," he added.

The introduction of new systems, such as the Entry/Exit System (EES) and the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) should greatly contribute to this, as well as boosting trust between member states, Hojs said.

This would in turn lead to the Schengen Area functioning without controls at internal borders.

"As a country with an external Schengen border we invest a lot of effort in timely implementation of new systems. The key is to find appropriate technical solutions that will shorten the border crossing procedure for police officers and passengers."

As for tools, Hojs pointed to Slovenia's idea from 2014 on the drafting of periodical reports on the functioning of the Schengen Area that would enable key shortcomings to be addressed at the political level.