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Accession of Croatia to the European Union
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This article treats the accession of Croatia to the European Union.
Croatia applied for EU membership in 2003, and the European Commission recommended making it an official candidate in early 2004. Candidate country status was granted to Croatia by the European Council (the EU's heads of government) in mid-2004. The entry negotiations, while originally set for March 2005, began in October that year, also launching the screening process.
After Slovenia, Croatia has recovered best from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and so hopes to become the second former Yugoslav state to become a member. It has a stable market economy and it is ahead of EU member states Bulgaria and Romania in some economic indicators such as GDP per capita.
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Croatia has had to extradite several of its citizens to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), an issue that was often contentious in domestic politics.
Croatia's relations with the court had continuously been cited by the EU officials as something that required further improvement. Ratification of the EU Stabilisation and Association Agreement with Croatia had been stalled because of this.
The European Council, after its summit of December 20, 2004, set the following March 17 as the date to start entry negotiations, provided that Croatia continued to cooperate fully with the ICTY. On March 16, 2005 – the day before talks were to begin – the EU postponed the commencement of negotiations, because the ICTY prosecution assessed the Croatian efforts to capture the fugitive general Ante Gotovina (indicted by the ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but at large since 2001) as neither timely nor sufficient.
On December 7, 2005 Spanish Police finally arrested Ante Gotovina with the help of the Spanish and Croatian governments on the Spanish island of Tenerife, located in the Canary Islands. He was brought to The Hague to be tried for war crimes. With the arrest of Ante Gotovina this issue seems to be now resolved, and entry negotiations have began anew, after the certification of ICTY chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte that Croatia now fully cooperates with the ICTY.
- See also: Foreign relations of Croatia#Slovenia
Croatia must also contend with long-standing border issues with Slovenia – a series of border disputes could yet threaten Slovenia's support for Croatia's accession, but good trade relations have thus far precluded this.
- See also: Foreign relations of Croatia#Italy
Free acquisition of real estate by foreigners is a sensitive issue in Croatia.
This matter particularly concerns the Italians, especially in Istria. While it has strong cultural and historic ties with Italy, the events surrounding World War II, when Istria changed hands between the Kingdom of Italy and SFR Yugoslavia, are more pertinent to the current issues. Numerous Italian politicians have expressed their discontent concerning the current inability of Italians to purchase land in Croatia, considering it discriminatory treatment, and stating that this issue should be resolved as soon as possible.
Croatia denies discrimination, indicating that Croatian legislation provides for the same treatment of all EU citizens concerning this issue. In mid-2006 Croatia and Italy agreed, and now Italian citizens may purchase land in Croatia, and Croatian citizens may purchase land in Italy. The same kind of measures, concerning this issue, have been employed by many new EU member countries before their own accession the EU. Examples of this include Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland, and especially Malta.
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2 Including anti-discrimination and equal opportunities for men and women.
| (brackets): expected date | situation of policy area at the start of membership negotiations, according to [1]. | |
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s - screening of the chapter |
non-acquis chapter - nothing to adopt no major difficulties expected further efforts needed |
considerable efforts needed
very hard to adopt current situation totally incompatible with EU acquis |
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| October 29, 2001 | Croatia signs the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) |
| February 21, 2003 | Formal application for membership submitted |
| October 9, 2003 | Croatia submits answers to the Commission's Questionnaire |
| April 20, 2004 | European Commission replies to the answers with a positive opinion (Avis) |
| June 18, 2004 | Croatia receives official candidate status |
| December 20, 2004 | European Council sets the date for the entry negotiations to begin March 17, 2005 |
| February 1, 2005 | SAA comes into force |
| March 16, 2005 | Negotiations postponed |
| October 3, 2005 | The beginning of negotiations |
| October 20, 2005 | Beginning of the screening process |
| June 12, 2006 | Opening and closing of the Science & Research chapter of the Acquis communautaire |
| June 28, 2006 | Opening of the Competition Policy and Customs Union chapters of the Acquis |
| 20 July 2006 | Opening of Social Policy & Employment chapter of the Acquis |
| December 11, 2006 | Opening and closing of the Education & Culture chapter of the Acquis |
| 29 March 2007 | Opening of Intellectual Property Law chapter of the Acquis |
| June 26, 2007 | Opening of six chapters of the Acquis: Right of Establishment & Freedom to provide Services, Company Law, Financial Services, Information Society & Media, Statistics and Financial Control |
| October 12, 2007 | Opening of Consumer & Health Protection and External Relations chapters of the Acquis |
| 20 December 2007 | Opening of Trans-European Networks and Financial & Budgetary Provisions chapters of the Acquis |
In June 2006, the EU officials projected that the accession of Croatia would likely happen in 2009 or 2010. The closure of negotiations for all chapters of the acquis communautaire is expected in 2008 or 2009, while signing the Accession treaty would happen in the year after. Before starting negotiations with Croatia, the acquis was divided into 35 chapters, 4 more than the previous 31; the new chapters, previously part of the agricultural policy and judiciary, are complex areas - their division into a few smaller chapters is meant to enable more efficient and expedient negotiations.
Originally Croatia had been aiming for a 2007 accession date—such an accomplishment would have broken Slovakia's record of 2.5 years of negotiations to complete the process. It has been remarked by Olli Rehn that the EU does expect a similar speed from Croatia. Still, the EU needs to solve its internal problems before accommodating any new member after 2007; under the current Treaty of Nice, the EU cannot function with more than 27 member states. The EU Constitution would have had this problem solved, but its rejection made any future accession more difficult, requiring additional administrative reforms.
In June 2006 commissioner Rehn stated that there will be no further enlargement of the European Union in this decade other than the 2007 accession of Bulgaria and Romania, due to the impasse in EU treaty reform following the rejection of the European Constitution in France and The Netherlands. Nevertheless Croatia will probably be the "first to meet all necessary conditions" and therefore be "the next country on the list", according to Rehn.[1]
The Treaty of Lisbon should erase all legal blocks currently preventing accession by Croatia to the Union. With the entry into force of that treaty – probably in 2009 – Croatia will be able to join the European Union.
On the 25 April 2007 the European Parliament congratulated Croatia for making "rapid progress" towards membership, but stated that "it must make further efforts in areas such as cooperation with the ICTY, reform of the judiciary and the transition to a market economy".[2] MEPs also stressed the need for a new institutional framework for the EU by 2008 in order to accommodate Croatia.
- ^ Euractiv.com - Croatia will not join EU before 2010 - URL accessed on June 12, 2006.
- ^ European Parliament, Croatia: Good progress towards accession and some issues remain, 25 April 2007, accessed 27 April 2007
- Jović, Dejan (April 2006). "Croatia and the European Union: a long delayed journey". Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans 8 (1): 85-103.
- Official website - Negotiations for the Accession of the Republic of Croatia to the European Union
- Official EU-website concerning enlargement
- BBC News: inside Europe: EU enlargement
