Croatia's Accession into the European Union
Video Transcript:
Video Transcript:
In 2013, Croatia will likely become the newest member of the European Union. However, a number of problems still have to be cleared in the coming months. The problems that Croatia faces generally reflect the difficulties of integrating Balkan countries into the European Union.
In 2011, Zagreb and the European Union reached an agreement on Croatia’s accession after six years of negotiations. Croatia’s membership will be finalized once all EU national parliaments have ratified its accession. Only the parliaments of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Slovenia still have to ratify the treaty. The goal is to see Croatia as full member of the European Union by July 2013.
This accession comes as Croatia is in the midst of an economic crisis. The Croatian economy is in recession and might have to ask for international financial aid as the public debt rises. The unemployment rate in Croatia is above the EU average and closely trailing unemployment rates in crisis countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal. But Croatia is only a small economy and therefore its troubles would not seriously threaten the economic stability of the European Union.
Croatia still has to implement reforms to please the European Union. The European Commission highlighted a number of institutional and economic deficiencies that still need to be addressed, which range from fighting corruption to reforms in the legal system and public administration.
To keep reform pressure on Croatia high, Berlin and others will likely wait until the last monitoring report by the European Commission is presented in spring 2013 before ratifying Croatia's accession.
On top of addressing domestic economic problems and applying reforms, bilateral disputes between Slovenia and Croatia have also complicated Croatia’s EU accession. In 2008, Slovenia temporarily blocked accession talks over a border dispute. Now Slovenia is threatening to block Croatia's accession because of a financial claims dispute dating back to the collapse of Yugoslavia.
It is likely that the long dispute will be resolved in the coming months. Slovenia will be under pressure from the wider European Union to not hold Croatia’s EU accession hostage over a bilateral dispute. Zagreb will likely soften its claims toward Slovenia in order to facilitate its own EU accession.
Despite the European crisis, most Western Balkan countries aspire to become EU members. Countries in the Balkans see the European Union as an entry door for more trade and foreign investment opportunities. EU accession also comes with money, as the European Union has several development and assistance programs for its least developed members. In 2012, Croatia already received pre-accession assistance of around 150 million euros. Should Croatia join the European Union in mid 2013, Zagreb would in net get more than twice as much from all kinds of EU funds.
However, the economic stagnation in Western Europe, the dire situation in the Balkans, the likely structural changes in the European Union and numerous bilateral disputes are all complicating factors to the institutional integration of these Balkan countries into Western Europe. Considering the current European crisis, the European Union wants to avoid poorer and politically unstable countries from creating further structural problems once they become EU members.
As a result, it will be a long time before countries such as Macedonia and Montenegro make it into the European Union.
