Croatia will join the EU in 2013

[Soldier of Macedon]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/croatia-signs-accession-treaty-to-become-eu-member-in-2013-even-as-eurozone-battles-crisis/2011/12/09/gIQAr1RoiO_story.html

Croatia signs accession treaty to become EU member in 2013, even as eurozone battles crisis

By Associated Press, Updated: Saturday, December 10, 8:36 AM
BRUSSELS — Croatia on Friday signed a treaty to join the European Union in 2013, a bittersweet milestone as the bloc prepares to take on a sluggish economy it will have to drag along at the time of its worst crisis ever.

Meanwhile, EU leaders said they were postponing a decision about whether to make Serbia a candidate for membership, a disappointment for the Western-leaning government, which has been trying to put the country’s years as a pariah state behind it.

The EU hailed Croatia’s signing as a historic day for the ex-communist country, but the Croatian government’s decade-long effort could turn out to have been a giant waste of time if the union’s 27 countries fail to solve a financial crisis that threatens to unravel the 53-year-old project to integrate the continent.

The union is battling to avoid being dragged down by members struggling with giant debts. Croatia’s expected entry in 18 months will not help matters: It has been hit hard by the global downturn and has been taking longer than its Balkan neighbors to come out of recession. It has been hoping EU membership will help boost its economy.

The country of 4.2 million is dealing with unemployment at around 17 percent and a budget gap projected at 6.2 percent of gross domestic product. The newly ousted conservative government had been reluctant to undertake serious structural and fiscal reform and fully curb corruption. Its credit rating was reduced a year ago by Standard & Poor’s, which cited a “deteriorated fiscal position and continuously weak” external financing.

The signing came following a marathon all-night session at an emergency summit at which most EU leaders decided to back a new treaty with strict oversight over national budgets, trying to convince markets that the euro has a future. Germany and France were unable to persuade Britain to agree to the treaty changes as it refused to give up some powers.

“It’s very, very odd for someone to join a club the night after the worst bust-up in that club’s history,” said Nigel Farage, a staunchly anti-EU British member of the European Parliament.

EU president Herman Van Rompuy said Croatia will be an “active observer” in all EU forums until it becomes a full member 18 months from now. Its membership must still be ratified by the legislatures of the bloc’s member nations.

Croatia’s entry talks lasted seven years and were held up repeatedly due to territorial disputes with neighboring Slovenia and demands that it arrest remaining war crimes suspects.

“Today Croatia is entering Europe, but more importantly Europe is entering Croatia,” Croatian President Ivo Josipovic told the heads of EU governments. He said Croatia’s progress showed that the EU was determined to eventually accept all Balkan countries into the bloc.

Croatia will become the second nation from the former Yugoslavia to join the EU after Slovenia, which became a member in 2004. All other countries that emerged from the Yugoslav federation — Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, as well as neighboring Albania — are also seeking membership.

[Soldier of Macedon]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204319004577088393417358780.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

EU Postpones Serbia Candidacy to Group, Signs With Croatia

European Union leaders postponed a decision on granting Serbia candidate status for membership in the group, potentially undermining the position of the Balkan state's pro-Western president, while signing an accession treaty with another aspiring member from the Balkans, Croatia, setting the stage for it to join the union in 2013.

The EU tried to soften the political blow to Serbia, which could strengthen the hand of the country's nationalist opposition, with EU Council President Herman van Rompuy congratulating Belgrade on its "considerable progress" and saying the EU has a "clear aim" of giving Serbia candidate status at the regional bloc's next summit in March.

In Belgrade, Serbian President Boris Tadic reaffirmed his determination to lead his country to joining the EU. But he said the delay would put "wind in the sails" of his opponents, who he said "are trying to push us back" to the instability of the past.

The move toward Croatian membership was made during a Friday summit in Brussels focused primarily on dealing with Europe's economic crisis. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said it should "send a clear signal to the country's neighbors: A signal that our European offer is on the table. Benefits of European integration are within reach if our partners stay the course."

Boosters argue that putting Balkan states on a path toward EU membership is the best way for Western powers to influence their behavior and defuse lingering regional tensions. All the remaining nations to emerge after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, as well as Albania, want to join—to gain access to European markets, travel privileges and development funds, among other things.

The EU also said Friday it would look to open accession talks with tiny Montenegro in June, as long as it keeps cracking down on organized crime and corruption.

Until recently, Serbia was viewed as likely to get candidacy now—largely because it succeeded in apprehending and extraditing Ratko Mladic, a Bosnian Serb commander wanted on war-crimes charges by the international tribunal in the Hague.

But a series of violent clashes between local ethnic Serbs and North Atlantic Treaty Organization Troops in Kosovo, a former province of Serbia that declared independence in 2008, set back its efforts. Germany, especially, remained unconvinced.

Dozens of NATO troops, some of them German, were injured last week after local Serbs opened fire with small arms and homemade explosive devices at soldiers attempting to clear roadblocks. The barricades had been erected by Serbs in Serb-majority areas of north Kosovo who oppose efforts by the largely ethnic-Albanian central government of Kosovo, based in Pristina, to extend its authority in areas along the country's border with Serbia.

Mr. Tadic, whose opponents favor strengthening ties with Russia over better relations with the EU, has urged Serbs in Kosovo to dismantle their barriers. Belgrade reached a deal last week with Pristina on joint management of the two countries' tense border. Serbia has national parliamentary elections in May.

Croatia's own progress toward EU membership hasn't come easily. It took Croatia seven years to satisfy EU demands for progress on various fronts, ranging from the extradition of war-crimes suspects and improved relations with its neighbors, to fighting crime and corruption.

Croatia, relatively well off compared with other Balkan nations, has been slow to recover from a serious recession that followed the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008. Unemployment is around 7% and the state budget deficit is likely to be above 5% of gross domestic product this year.

A center-left coalition that won parliamentary elections this month has said it aims to cut government spending next year.

[Soldier of Macedon]

http://euobserver.com/15/114558

Serbia and Montenegro face setbacks on EU path

BRUSSELS - Leaders are to grant Serbia EU candidate status in March 2012 provided it steps up talks with Kosovo, while Montenegro's membership talks will start in June pending a crackdown on corruption and crime.

"With a view to granting Serbia the status of candidate country by March 2012," EU leaders ask for more progress in talks with Kosovo, according to draft conclusions seen by EUobserver.

Serbia had hoped to be given candidate status at this EU summit after earlier this year handing over top war crimes suspects to The Hague and last week agreeing to joint customs and immigrations checks with Kosovo.

But Germany - backed by Austria, Finland and the UK - said the Kosovo deal was too little, too late after Kosovar Serbs injured Austrian and German Nato soldiers with live ammunition and rocks last week.

The three other "if-s" attached in the EU draft conclusions - implementation "in good faith" of the customs deal, "inclusive regional co-operation" and allowing EU police and Nato troops to "execute their mandate" in north Kosovo - indicate that even the March date is not set in stone.

"It won't happen if they start shooting German troops again," one senior EU official told this website on condition of anonymity.

The March date is important because Serbian President Boris Tadic - the EU's biggest ally in Belgrade - faces parliamentary elections in May.

For his part, Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen earlier this week said Serbia should get status this year.

But a senior Nato official at the same press breifing in Brussels said people do not buy Serbia's line that it does not control the north Kosovo militants.

"We welcome President Tadic's call on the Serbs to remove the blockade and we want to see that happening. Serbia still has links in this part of the world, we would appreciate its help to restore freedom of movement," the official said.

Meanwhile, Montenegro - which split from Serbia in 2006 but, unlike Kosovo, is recognised by Belgrade as an independent country - will start EU membership talks in June 2012, the draft conclusions said.

The EU leaders noted it still has work to do on tackling organised crime and corruption.

A special report by the European Commission in the first half of 2012 will also looking at how the new country protects fundamental rights and guarantees the independence of its judiciary.

[Zarni]

I pity the Croats live will never be the same for them

[Soldier of Macedon]

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=480920&version=1&template_id=39&parent_id=21

An umbrella group of Croatia’s EU membership opponents has urged citizens to vote ‘no’ in a forthcoming referendum over the issue during an anti-Brussels gathering held in the capital Zagreb.

“Say ‘No’ to the European Union” in the January 22 referendum, Josip Miljak, head of a minor ultra-nationalist party and one of the organisers, told some 300 people, according to police, who gathered at Zagreb’s central square.

“It is an integration that is falling apart at all seams. The EU (idea) has been already used up and for Croatia it is too late to enter,” he stressed.

Another organiser, Zeljko Sacic, who spoke from an improvised stage dominated by the banner “No to EU”, also called on Croatians to “take part at the referendum and vote ‘no’”.
“The path towards EU was made of betrayals, suffering and blackmail,” he said in a reference to criteria the country had to meet during its almost six years of accession talks.
Some of the protesters, mostly older people, waved Croatian flags reading “I love Croatia, No to EU” while some were dressed in blue T-shirts with the letters EU crossed out.
“We are part of Europe anyway. We don’t want to have masters above our heads, but to be really independent,” Mile Grgas, a 77-year-old sculptor, told AFP.

Anica Zanetic, 44, lamented that by entering the bloc Croatia would “lose its sovereignty”.
“We just left one association and they are pushing us towards another,” she said, referring to the socialist Yugoslav federation from which Croatia proclaimed independence in 1991. The move triggered the four-year war.

Meanwhile, at a separate gathering campaigning for joining the EU, Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic said the outcome of the referendum was a “question whether Croatia would secure its future”. In the case of ‘no’ the country’s credit rating would be very likely downgraded and it would also affect its investment security, she warned. “The decision in the referendum is in a way the decision about Croatia’s economic survival,” Pusic said.

The country of 4.2mn, whose economy is based notably on Adriatic tourism, has been in recession for most of the time since 2009. The national bank puts 2011 growth at a modest 0.4% and forecasts a 0.2% fall in gross domestic product (GDP) this year.

Croatia signed the EU accession treaty in December, enabling it to formally become the bloc’s newest member in mid-2013. The treaty has to be ratified by all 27 member states.
The latest survey showed that almost 58% of around 60% of Croatians who would definitely take part in the referendum, back EU membership. Twenty-three per cent oppose it, according to the poll released earlier this month.

After Slovenia in 2004, Croatia should become the second of the six republics that made up Yugoslavia to join the bloc.

[Brian]

Poor Croatia. But will there be an EU in 2013 to join, or will they be broke or split-up?

[Risto the Great]

Great news!
Think of all that coastline being sold to pay for Greece!
Awesome.

[George S.]

i doubt if the croats will vote for joining the eu.

[Zarni]

Literally overnight the prices of Food and household goods increased Croatians have said they cant afford signs of what EU membership means
something Macedonians dont want to listen to