Croatia tourism is happy about Croatia becoming a “Schengen” visa country in the EU. Croatia has met the technical criteria to join. But what does Schengen expansion mean for Europe, and can the EU overcome its border policy crisis triggered by the migrant influx that began in 2014?

In the meantime the French president said. “We must profoundly rethink our development policy and our migration policy, even if it is a Schengen with fewer states.” The French president doesn’t think Schengen still works.

Croatia would represent Schengen’s first territorial expansion in more than a decade when the accession of Switzerland was completed in 2008.

The Schengen zone currently comprises 22 of the EU’s 28 member states as well as four non-EU members: Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. (Croatia, which joined the EU in 2013, is one of six members not in Schengen, alongside the UK, Ireland, Bulgaria, Romania, and Cyprus.)

The zone’s external borders cover 50,000 kilometers, according to the European Parliament.

But with immigration still dominating politics, and the rise of populism, as well as the distraction of Brexit, many of the temporary measures have yet to be rolled back.

Hungary’s Viktor Orban has made huge political capital out of his new razor-wire-topped border fence with Serbia and aggressive rhetoric about defending Europe from migrants.

Six Schengen countries still apply internal border controls: France, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.