Croatia Gets Green Light to Join EU’s Visa-Free Schengen Zone

(Bloomberg) -- Six years after Croatia joined the European Union, the Balkan nation is getting a green light from the European Commission to join the bloc’s passport-free Schengen area.

Croatia has continued to fulfill all of Schengen criteria, the Commission said in a statement in Brussels on Tuesday. The European Council would still need to sign off on Croatia’s accession. It’s the latest country to join the EU.

“I commend Croatia for its efforts and perseverance to meet all the necessary conditions to join Schengen,” President Jean-Claude Juncker said in a statement. “This is why I trust the member states will take the right steps for Croatia to become a full Schengen member soon.”

Fellow EU nations Romania and Bulgaria, which joined the bloc in 2007, are still waiting to join the world’s largest multinational free-travel zone.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jasmina Kuzmanovic in Zagreb at jkuzmanovic@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrea Dudik at adudik@bloomberg.net, ;Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, ;Nikos Chrysoloras at nchrysoloras@bloomberg.net, Michael Winfrey

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