Minister of the Interior, Boštjan Poklukar, and Acting Director General of the Police, Senad Jušić, concluded a two-day working visit to North Macedonia.

On 7 May, at the Gevgelija border crossing point, they met with the Slovenian police officers deployed in a Frontex joint operation. More than 100 European border guards started working in North Macedonia on 20 April 2023, assisting local authorities in border surveillance and border control, including patrolling, document checks and gathering information on cross-border crime. Six Slovenian police officers are currently deployed there. The Slovenian police have been present in North Macedonia since January 2016, helping to guard the Macedonian-Greek border and thus to manage irregular migration.

Poklukar and Jušić also visited the temporary Vinojug transit centre and the border control centre with a video surveillance system. Last year, the Western Balkan migration route was heavily used, with 136% more migrants entering the EU illegally than in 2021. Migrants processed by the police in Slovenia mostly enter the EU at the external Schengen border, which is controlled by Greece, Bulgaria and Croatia. We are thus facing secondary migration.

At the invitation of his Macedonian counterpart Oliver Spasovski, with whom they met in early April on the sidelines of the Brdo process in Portorož, Minister Poklukar and Police Chief Jušić also attended a ceremony to mark the Macedonian Police Day. On that occasion, the Minister and the Police Chief congratulated their Macedonian colleagues and thanked them for maintaining a very good cooperation with Slovenia.

On Monday, 8 May, Poklukar and Jušić were guests at the opening of the Interpol European Regional Conference in Ohrid. This was the first major high-level police conference in North Macedonia. Slovenia was represented at the conference by the Director of the Criminal Police Directorate, David Antolovič. Interpol is an important partner of the Slovenian police, as being the oldest and largest international organisation for cooperation between criminal police forces, it is a key stakeholder in the fight against international crime and an important contributor to global security.

On the sidelines of his working visit to North Macedonia, Mr Poklukar held a short bilateral meeting with the Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nenad Nesic, who presented the current security situation in his country.