Minister says about 200 people have applied to enter Croatia

ZAGREB, May 10 (Hina) – Speaking about the easing of restrictions on cross-border travel, the head of the national coronavirus crisis management team, Minister of the Interior Davor Bozinovic, said on Sunday that around 200 people had already applied to enter Croatia.

“According to information from the Border Directorate, more than half of them are nationals of Slovenia,” Bozinovic told Nova TV when asked about the easing of restrictions on cross-border travel.

The national coronavirus crisis management team on Saturday decided to allow Croatian nationals to travel abroad while foreign nationals will be able to enter Croatia for business purposes or urgent personal reasons. The decision refers only to nationals of EU member states.

Asked who could now enter the country without having to self-isolate, Bozinovic said that “it makes no sense to invite people who are interested in business cooperation to a meeting and then put them in isolation and ban them from leaving their hotel.”

“People will be allowed to attend a business meeting, do what they came to do, visit their real estate or go to the faculty, but they will have to spend the rest of their time where they are staying, be it a hotel or student dormitory,” Bozinovic said, adding that in case a new hotspot emerged, restrictions would be reintroduced.

Meanwhile, six more residents of the island of Brac have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, which puts the total number of COVID-19 positive residents at 38.

All of them are under epidemiological surveillance and 139 are in self-isolation.

The disease broke out in the island community of Nerezisca where about 30 people paid visits to an elderly man who had been released from the Split Hospital. From Nerezisca the infection has spread to the communities of Pucisca, Bol and Supetar.

At midnight on Saturday a 14-day ban on leaving one’s place of residence was restored and e-passes were reintroduced on the island. Those measures had been in force throughout the country until April 27.