EU integration: Learning from Croatia’s example

By TONINO PICULA*
Croatia marks its first anniversary of the EU membership in a year which echoes of historical reminiscences. This June we commemorated one hundred years since the outbreak of the First World War, but there are other remarkable “round” dates as well: the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, 64 years of the Schumann Declaration, 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and 10 years from the “bing bang” EU enlargement.
Just as reminder, Croatia was the first country which had applied for membership in 21th century. No country has before applied for membership in the EU after single currency has been put into force, unprecedentedly enlarged with 27 members and later negotiated with the EU troubled with such serious problems in its eurozone and political unrest in all over the neighbourhood.
Twenty one years after international recognition, thirteen years after institutional ties with EU had been established, and almost eight years since negotiations started, Croatia has approached to its backbone goal. The membership in the EU was a goal beyond mere political affiliation. It was and still it is a multifaceted undertaking not only by Governments, Parliament or other branches of power but business community, civil society, trade unions, NGO’s and number of individuals.
Let me say that despite all disputes and clashes between ruling majorities and oppositions in Croatia we had established very early a firm alliance called Union for Europe to set a consistent frame on national level to push and overview nagotiations with EU. It worked well.
But, why after all, Croatia in the EU? Alongside political, economic, historical and other reasons, it is a fun fact that there is almost no major city in Croatia more than 40 km away from any state border.
Croatia was an example of post-conflict society, a country which did not change only political system on the beginning of the nineties but had been founded as the independent state under severe war conditions.
Croatia is the first country, deeply affected by the wars in former Yugoslavia, which is entering the EU. After all clashes about 4.000 km of new state borderlines emerged on the political map of Europe.
Basically, there are three types of Croatian image perceived from abroad during last two and half decades: Yugoslav Croatia, wartime Croatia and finally European Croatia. On the other hand, perception of the EU in Croatia has been also changing over time; from the start with euphoria, over occasional euroscepticism to today prevailing eurorealism. And that means that EU is not a solution of the problems itself but a valuable tool to resolve problems.
As the country with both significant post-war experience and faced with much more sharper criteria to meet standards for membership after 2007 enlargement, Croatia through years reshaped itself for good and for the benefits of its people.
In the course of negotiations, Croatia had to close the total of 35 chapters, meet 400 benchmarks and pass 1503 laws to adapt to the legal heritage of the EU. For Croatia, it was difficult that its accession was not developing in the framework of almost routine operation of admission of new members, but in the shade of sharp discussions about functioning and about the future of the Union itself.
We learned that accession procession is not a competition with other states but fighting with your own low capacities. It really doesn’t help comparison with other candidate countries. There is no use even if you are better then them. You have to be better then yourself.
As you already know, it ‘s a three dimension process: negotiations, reforms and communication. You need to pass successful through all of them.
In short, Croatia got a message: You either enter completely clean, or you do not enter at all.
Let me mention two of Croatia specific accession hurdles we had to face:
1. International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia co-operation
Croatia’s unconditioned cooperation with the ICTY was often seen as a requirement for continuation of the Accession process and has often caused delay: a) ratification of the SAA had been stalled due to extradition issues; b) opening of the negotiations was postponed for several months after ICTY Prosecutor deemed Croatian efforts to arrest general Gotovina as insufficient; c) ICTY continued to block Accession until Croatia provided evidence that it had fully investigated circumstances surrounding the missing documents and reassured the ICTY and the EU that it did not possess any of the remaining documents.
2. Border disagreement with Slovenia
Croatia has had long-standing border issues with Slovenia over the Piran Bay boundary over which it blocked Croatia’s accession between December 2008 and September/October 2009. Slovenia blocked opening of 8 chapters and closure of another 3 while claiming that Croatian negotiation documentation prejudged the border. Finally both countries agreed on EU brokered deal to settle dispute before arbitrage court.
I will also list some of Croatian accession hurdles Albania might encounter in near future:
1. Judicial reform and human rights
Accession requirements included: judicial reform to strengthen the independence, accountability, impartiality, professionalism and efficiency of the judiciary; a crackdown on corruption and organised crime (this resulted in the conviction of former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader for taking bribes); strengthen the protection of minorities; settle outstanding refugee return issues; improve the protection of human rights.
2. Privatisation issues
Croatia was required to stop subsidising its shipbuilding industry, resulting in privatisations, closures and reduced production capacity.
3. Land ownership
Free acquisition of real estate by foreigners is a sensitive issue in Croatia. This matter particularly concerns Italians, especially in Istria. In mid-2006, Croatia and Italy came to an agreement allowing Italian citizens to purchase land in Croatia and Croatian citizens to purchase land in Italy. Other EU members had to resolve similar issues: Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland, and especially Malta.
4. Public opinion
Croatian government has often dealt with decline in public support for EU accession due to unpopular decisions and reforms required during the negotiation period. ICTY demands, privatisation, negotiation suspension by Slovenia, and in general the issue of transferal of part of national sovereignty were just some of the major issues that dominated rising anti- EU discourse in Croatia.
Despite some effort from the government, EU sentiment did not become warm enough as the negotiations came to its successful completion and Constitutional changes were made to amend the law on referendum. As results were to show, the EU accession referendum would not have passed without the amendment that allowed referendum to be valid even with less than 50% of registered voters turnout.
Same as there was nothing routine about the process of accession to the EU, the first twelve months of Croatian membership showed that there is no routine in membership consumption either. The Perkovic case is only the most prominent example but there is also, on one hand, the Excessive Deficit Procedure, problems with developing EU funds mechanisms for fund withdrawal for series of infrastructural and governmental projects, and on the other, training local government, businesses and individuals for participating in this new game.
If I need to mention some challenges and opportunities for Croatia, I would highlighted that after accession to EU, Croatia step out from CEFTA Treaty (Central European Free Trade Agreement). Due to changes in the trade system, estimated losses for Croatia will be around 100 million Euro on annual level.
Generally, Croatian economy approaches to post-subsidies age; Croatian companies have to prove themselves in the market 120 times larger than the domestic one. Unfortunately, unemployment of young people up to 24 years of age has between 2008 and 2011 increased to 41.7%.
However, after the 1st of July 2013 Croatia needs a new focus not only for its foreign but also its overall policy. As the democratic change in the early nineties had not only homogenised people in their demand for state independence but had also opened up the possibility of diverse political expression, so has the country’s accession to the EU opened up again a whole range of important issues on which there is no social consensus.
The membership obviously represents a constant positive pressure for reforming all of the structures with which the country joined the EU. It would seem that Croatia’s first year of membership proved to be only the first half of its comprehensive adjustment to standards that EU represents.
It is true that a year later Croatia in the EU deals with the very same challenges as Croatia before joining the EU. Today, however, in dealing with them we have a whole range of resources at disposal (both at national and European level) that we can and must take advantage of.
There is another relevant aspect of our EU membership: Croatia, as the youngest member state, has the most recent negotiating experience and borders three countries at different stages of the EU accession.
Croatian borders to Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro became external borders of the EU. On July 1 2013, the EU, for the first time, touched a ground borders of Bosna-Hercegovina and Montenegro. Croatia became first EU member state from socalled Dayton triangle countries which includes: B-H, Serbia and Croatia.
I would like to believe that, with Croatia as the member state, we are witnessing an unquestionable and irreversible process of European type of co-operation and partnership in the Western Balkans.
Croatia will complete the process of its overall transition only when all of its neighbours are part of the EU. A strong regional policy would therefore help Croatia.
There is no doubts that Croatian membership in the EU is, among many other things, a worthy contribution to the rebranding of term the Balkans. But we are still waiting to see will the EU serve on the Balkans in next coming period as good mediator and facilitator as it has served in the Western Europe during last 60 years?
As EU spreads to the southeast, there is always a possibility that some old unsolved bilateral question from the age of cold war or even earlier, becomes the point of conflict during the negotiations.
Expanding on the continent for sixty years, the EU has offered cooperation and brought the membership perspective to its neighbours. The idea that helped the Western, and later whole of Europe, to overcome conflicting national interests can and should help the Western Balkans integrate into the European project.
In the middle of 90-ties Western Balkans have been among focal problems of the world politics. Today it is not even for the EU which is affected by serious crisis.
I often point out that it was easier to establish European Economic Union in the fifties of the last century than, in 2013 enter the European Union.
The history of EU is also the history of its enlargement. Regarding last statement coming from new EC president, I believe that deepening and enlargement are not necessary confronting processes. The EU has to remain a union open to new members and new initiatives. There must not come to the division to the central and peripheral zones. Its political, economical and culturological benefits need to be evenly spread.
Dear Albanian colleagues and friends, I am convinced that length of way you already passed and left behind is shorter then path you have to pass through in the future to achieve your EU goal.
I am just advising you to use best practice Croatia has developed and avoid most of mistakes we did during process.
*Tonino Picula is a member of the European Parliament (Croatia, SDP) and the country’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs. These were the remarks he made in Tirana at a conference on European integration organized by the Albanian Institute for International Studies on Sept. 30.