It is the exclusive competence of the Croatian authorities to decide on persons who may or may not enter the territory of Croatia.
The European Commission (EC) announced this to "Vijesti" today, answering the question whether Croatia's decision to declare three Montenegrin politicians undesirable applies to all member states of the European Union (EU) or whether each member decides individually.
It is not clear from the answer whether this means that at this moment Croatia's decision does not apply to the other countries of the Schengen zone.
Yesterday, Zagreb declared the head of the Montenegrin Parliament Andrija Mandić, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksa Bečić and the leader of the Democratic People's Party (DNP) Milan Knežević as persona non grata due to "systemic actions to disrupt good neighborly relations with the Republic of Croatia and continuous abuse of the Republic of Croatia for internal political purposes", alluding thus to the decision of the Parliament of Montenegro to adopt at the end of June the Resolution on the genocide in Jasenovac and the Dachau and Mauthausen camps.
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41 members of the parliamentary majority voted for it, ie representatives of PES, Mandić's New Serbian Democracy (NSD), Bečić's Democrats, DNP, Socialist People's Party (SNP) and Citizens' Alliance CIVIS.
The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (MVEP) of Croatia announced yesterday that it regrets that the majority in the Montenegrin parliament decided "to ignore continuous calls" from Croatia not to take steps that could negatively affect bilateral relations and Montenegro's European path.
"In this context, the actions of the mentioned political officials stand out, and their actions cannot be considered benevolent and good-neighborly in relation to the Republic of Croatia, nor are they in accordance with the declared goal of Montenegro's membership in the European Union (EU)," stated MVEP .
The Ministry announced that Croatia supports "European Montenegro", the process of Podgorica's accession to the EU, and that it advocated progress on Montenegro's European path.
"The Republic of Croatia expects that Montenegro will behave in accordance with European values and in the European spirit, and that it will focus its efforts on further fulfilling the conditions and criteria in the accession process," it was said.
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