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The Schengen Area has a population of more than 450 million people and an area of about 4,595,000 km 2 (1,774,000 sq mi). [citation needed] About 1.7 million people commute to work across an internal European border each day, and in some regions these international commuters constitute up to a third of the workforce. In 2015, there were 1.3 ...
Croatia is a republic and has a parliamentary system. It is a member of the European Union, the Eurozone, the Schengen Area, NATO, the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the World Trade Organization, a founding member of the Union for the Mediterranean, and is currently in the process of joining the OECD.
The accession of Croatia to the European Union was completed in 2013. Croatia first hosted the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2020. The country adopted the euro as its currency and joined the Schengen Area in 2023. [1]
On 8 December 2022, the Justice and Home Affairs Council voted to admit Croatia to the Schengen Area, effective from 1 January 2023. [19] On 30 December 2023, the Justice and Home Affairs Council agreed to partially include Bulgaria and Romania in the Schengen Area, with air and maritime border checks lifted from 31 March 2024. [20]
The Schengen Area consists of 25 EU member states and four non-EU countries that are members of EFTA: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Cyprus, while an EU member state, is not yet part of the Schengen Area but, nonetheless, has a visa policy that is partially based on the Schengen acquis. [2]
The two eastern European nations made a breakthrough in their bid to join the Area in late 2023
The influx of refugees and migrants from Greece through North Macedonia and Serbia to Croatia and then to current Schengen member states like Slovenia, Austria and Hungary, as part of the 2015 European migrant crisis, led some to question whether there will be the political consensus necessary for further enlargement of the Schengen Area.
The Faroe Islands are not part of the Schengen Area, and Schengen visas are not valid. However, the islands are part of the Nordic Passport Union and the Schengen Agreement provides that travellers passing between the islands and the Schengen Area are not to be treated as passing the external frontier of the Area. [80]