Home

Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Croatia

Transnational Issues

Bosnia and HerzegovinaCroatia
Disputes - international

Serbia delimited about half of the boundary with Bosnia and Herzegovina, but sections along the Drina River remain in dispute

dispute remains with Bosnia and Herzegovina over several small sections of the boundary related to maritime access that hinders ratification of the 1999 border agreement; since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, Croatia and Slovenia have each claimed sovereignty over Piranski Bay and four villages, and Slovenia has objected to Croatia's claim of an exclusive economic zone in the Adriatic Sea; in 2009, however Croatia and Slovenia signed a binding international arbitration agreement to define their disputed land and maritime borders, which led to Slovenia lifting its objections to Croatia joining the EU; Slovenia continues to impose a hard border Schengen regime with Croatia, which joined the EU in 2013 but has not yet fulfilled Schengen requirements

Illicit drugsincreasingly a transit point for heroin being trafficked to Western Europe; minor transit point for marijuana; remains highly vulnerable to money-laundering activity given a primarily cash-based and unregulated economy, weak law enforcement, and instances of corruptionprimarily a transit country along the Balkan route for maritime shipments of South American cocaine bound for Western Europe and other illicit drugs and chemical precursors to and from Western Europe; no significant domestic production of illicit drugs
Refugees and internally displaced personsrefugees (country of origin): 5,116 (Croatia) (2019)

IDPs: 99,000 (Bosnian Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks displaced by inter-ethnic violence, human rights violations, and armed conflict during the 1992-95 war) (2020)

stateless persons: 66 (2020)

note: 82,052 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-August 2021)
stateless persons: 2,900 (2020)

note: 727,610 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-May 2021); flows slowed considerably in 2017; Croatia is predominantly a transit country and hosts about 340 asylum seekers as of the end of June 2018

Source: CIA Factbook