Während die EU noch darüber debattiert, ob Beitrittsverhandlungen mit dem Land aufgenommen werden sollen, stehen die kroatischen Wähler der EU zunehmend skeptisch gegenüber. Dies schreibt Zeljka Vujcic in Transitions Online.
Since Croatia became a candidate for EU membership in June 2004, it has seen more than its fair share of ups and downs on the issue of European integration. But in March 2005 its latest down proved very low, with Croatia being bluntly told that it would not be able to enter the EU without dramatic improvements in its handling of the war crimes issue.
As EU foreign ministers prepare to meet to discuss whether to start membership negotiations with the two candidates Croatia and Turkey, the question now is whether Croatia has done enough to bounce back. A decision is to be announced on 3 October.
However, the key individuals in determining whether the EU should start talks with the Balkan country are not among the EU’s 25 foreign ministers: rather, they are Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague (ICTY), and fugitive general Ante Gotovina of Croatia, one of the court’s three most wanted men. (The other two are Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic.)
The fugitive
Before she reports to the EU’s task force for Croatia, Del Ponte is to visit Zagreb on 30 September to assess the situation. Gotovina has been indicted for his command responsibility in the last offensive of the 1991-95 war, when the Croatian army took control of territories held by rebel Serbs.
He is considered a hero by many Croats for his role in the operation.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said he was a “moderate optimist” about Croatia’s prospects as he continued his strenuous effort to convince his EU interlocutors that his government was fully cooperating with the ICTY. On 27 September, he traveled to Strasbourg for talks with officials of the European Parliament and the Council of Europe.
Sanader appeared to have secured some support from Josep Borrell, the president of the European Parliament. “Croatia has made big steps forward and I hope that will be recognized. There will be a lot of discussion about that these days. I personally support Croatia and hope for a good outcome,” Borrell said on 27 September.
While in Strasbourg, Sanader also talked with members of the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), the largest bloc in the parliament, which had already in March opposed the EU’s decision to suspend the beginning of negotiations until Croatia could prove it was fully cooperating.
But other MEPs warned Zagreb that it must take its obligations seriously. Bronislaw Geremek, a former Polish foreign minister and member of the liberal faction in the European Parliament, argued that it is in Croatia’s own interest to fulfil as soon as possible the EU conditions for the opening of membership negotiations because the mood inside the EU toward enlargement is changing. “I hope Croatia will join the union in the next phase of enlargement, together with or shortly after Bulgaria and Romania,” Geremek said on 27 September.
Critics at home have attacked Sanader over his failure to secure Croatia’s entry for 2007, the year Bulgaria and Romania are expected to join the EU. It is now widely assumed that Croatia will not be a member before the decade is over.
Even that appears uncertain after France and the Netherlands rejected the draft EU constitution, a move many observers attributed at least in part to enlargement fatigue after the EU took in ten new member states in May 2004. The situation within the EU was certainly less complex before 17 March, the first date for the start of Croatia’s membership talks.
Back then, a majority of EU member-states agreed with Del Ponte that Croatia had shown insufficient political will to find and arrest General Gotovina. Britain in particular, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, adopted a tough stance in defining cooperation as nothing short of the arrest and extradition of Gotovina to The Hague.
There was no understanding for claims by the Croatian government that Gotovina was no longer in the country. In the words of President Stjepan Mesic, “we cannot arrest him if he is in Paraguay.”
Croatia suffered another blow earlier this month, when the United States said that were also shattered when Washington said it was unlikely that Croatia, along with Albania and Macedonia, would enter NATO before 2008. Zagreb had entertained hopes of joining in 2006.
To read the article in full, visit the Transitions Online website.