"It is a fact that we have an agreement on local border traffic and cooperation with Croatia, which envisages the use of IDs and we want to keep that regime," Rupel said when asked to comment on Croatian media reports about the European Union's recommendation that Slovenia give up on its current border regime with Croatia after its entry into the Schengen space.
Rupel, who was attending a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Lappenrante, Finland, said that he did not know anything about such a recommendation, but that it was a fact that the Schengen regime did not envisage passage of the border with ID cards, and that access to the Schengen space from other countries required passports.
Rupel said the argument that would be used in favour of keeping such a border regime would be the fact that Croatia and Italy, which has been part of the Schengen space from the beginning, had an agreement on passage of the border with IDs.
Eight of the ten new EU member-countries, except Cyprus and Malta, should become part of the Schengen space in late October 2007, but due to delays in the establishment of the new Schengen information system, their entry is likely to be postponed until 2008.