Croatia Joining the European Union: EU Member Before 2010?

After the bloody bust-up of the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, tiny Slovenia emerged as the most stable new Balkan state and joined the European Union in 2004. Of the remaining former Yugoslav republics, Croatia is the next most compatible with the EU. Croatia applied for EU membership in 2003, the European Commission granted candidate country status in 2004, and negotiations have been ongoing. Croatian accession to the EU is now expected sometime before 2010, with 2009 as an unofficial target date.

As part of the European Union’s strategic plan for peace and prosperity in the Balkan region, Croatian accession is expected to help pave the way for other republics that need significant reform before EU membership is feasible – Macedonia (the next best candidate), Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro and Albania. Just as Croatia closely watched the most recent membership processes with Bulgaria and Romania to learn of the reforms needed, so too will these countries look toward Croatia as a role model.

The good news for Croatia is that the country remains relatively strong economically, especially when compared to some of the member states that joined in 2004 (i.e. Latvia, Slovakia, etc.). To use the EU’s own words, Croatia enjoys already reasonable macroeconomic stability and is deemed capable of competing with market forces in the EU, provided that minor reforms are undertaken. In fact, the EU is already Croatia’s biggest trading partner, and inflation rates have been kept low.

Croatia’s well-developed infrastructure, education system, democratic practices, and human rights guarantees have all won either praise or at least tentative acceptance from the EU evaluators. While some progress is needed on these fronts, there is little, if any, serious concern about these aspects of the Copenhagen criteria (European Union membership standards).

So what are the country’s weak spots? Areas still needing significant reform include taxation, free movement of capital, agriculture, environmental issues, energy policy, and justice and home affairs (which includes corruption control). While the EU has specified that these matters need vigorous reform, similar language was used with many other successfully acceding states, and the EU officials are working with Croatian authorities to develop roadmaps for necessary changes.

Other issues Croatia must attend to are relationship-oriented. The country must assure the European Union more demonstratively of its protections for cultural minorities, including the Serbs and the Roma. There are also some minor international issues, including border and energy disputes with neighboring Slovenia and real estate investment and fishing zone tensions with Italy. Because unanimous ratification of any eventual EU accession treaty is required before full membership takes effect, Croatia will need to resolve these lingering issues with its neighbors so that Italian and Slovenian legislatures do not fail to ratify the accession treaty once it is signed (probably sometime in late 2007 or early 2008).

Croatia is much farther along in its negotiations than both and the FYR of Macedonia, the other two official candidate countries. Accordingly, Croatian citizens can look forward to EU membership in 2009 or 2010, as their beloved Republika Hrvatska should be the first country to accede after Bulgaria and Romania join in 2007.