Franz-Lothar Altmann
Regatta principle instead of group accession
Croatia’s accession as 28th member of the European Union can be seen as a special case in several aspects. So far the enlargement process of the EU was characterized by group accessions, and for quite some time it was also expected that in the case of the Western Balkans the group ap- proach, even on a smaller scale, would be applied, too. However, the EU had to realize that differences between the prospective candidate coun- tries remained large, and even the idea that in order to balance the power situation, Croatia and Serbia should be taken in at the same time was not any longer acceptable due to the unresolved Kosovo-Serbia dispute. Ma- cedonia remained constantly, and very probably will be also for some more years, blocked by Greece’s veto, which recently has even found support by Bulgaria. Albania still is plagued by fundamental deficiencies concerning weaknesses in the judiciary and the administration as well as the fight against corruption and clientelism, and Bosnia and Herzegovina seems to be a lost case due to its petrified ethnic division. Only Monte- negro, although a state captured by the Djukanović clan, has succeeded in proceeding towards membership negotiations with Brussels.
Signal and new mechanisms
In the view of this bleak general situation on the Balkans a clear signal that the enlargement process has not ended was in the interest of the en- largement prone EU Commission, and Croatia which anyhow was push- ing hard became the signal state for the Balkans. In this context it should be remembered that Croatia’s accession happened at a time when the EU still was desperately struggling with internal problems derived from the severe economic and financial crisis in the South and in Ireland, but also when Brussels was more and more confronted with rising enlargement fatigue, in the EU but also in the aspirant countries.
Croatia in fact became the first candidate to enter the EU according to the regatta principle as well as experiencing the new instrument of ap- plying pre-negotiation benchmarks. Croatia’s negotiation process thus became an example how in the future the entire procedure will be exe- cuted, but more important was the signal to the remaining aspirant coun- tries that successful reform processes finally lead to EU membership.
Politicians and citizens in the candidate countries may be motivated to scrutinize their reform attempts and the accession processes critically.
The example of Croatia should bring new momentum and pressure for the respective governments in the Western Balkan countries to intensify their reform endeavours.
Furthermore, Croatia is expected to support the other Western Balkan countries by providing its experiences from the accession process, in particular from the negotiation rounds. It certainly is helpful that it is an easy task for Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to translate for exam- ple the hundreds of thousands of pages of the acquis communautaire which Croatia had to accept and to translate into Croatian language.
Responsibilities
On the other hand, it will be of utmost importance for the EU and for the aspirant countries how Croatia will behave now as a new member of the EU. The negative examples of Bulgaria, Romania, and recently also of Hungary, have raised scepticism in the old EU countries whether now Croatia will serve as a new model pupil or will become another problem member. The first problematic case already appeared with the Perković case and the European arrest warrant. The pure fact that the very last working day before formal accession of Croatia a new law was passed by Parliament in Zagreb that prohibits the extradition of those who committed respective crimes before August 7, 2002, had stirred up wide- spread irritations in the EU, in particular in Germany where the murder case happened on which Perković is allegedly responsible for, and prompted the threat of EU sanctions against Croatia. This strange behav- iour of Croatia’s officials, including the President of the state, was commented as unfortunate revival of nationalistic tendencies, an attitude which those always have indicated as an anti-argument when discussing
Croatia’s acceptance to the EU! For Brussels the necessity to monitor the development in Croatia also after the accession was thus underlined in most comments in West European newspapers. For the remaining aspirant countries it became obvious that if Croatia misbehaves also in future, stronger reform commitments for the candidate countries and stricter pre-accession monitoring will be applied. Furthermore an inten- sification of accession preparation is requested.
Croatia in the EU
Croatia as new EU member will co-design and co-determine internal and external politics of the European Union. In principle Croatia will be a strong promoter of the enlargement process due to its own interests: it must be against a long-lasting divide within South Eastern Europe, eco- nomically there will be higher import duties for Croatian products in the remaining CEFTA countries. And it does not want to remain forever a protector of the longest outer border of the European Union (almost 1400 km)! There is the fear of a stronger delimitation of Croatia vis-à- vis its South Eastern neighbours in the sense: Croatia the “last fortress of Europe”. The EU anyhow supports the improvement of the border re- gime of Croatia with a temporary Schengen facility of € 120 million until 2014.
For the EU Croatia will remain one more beneficiary country finan- cially. Since years its economy is in an extremely dire situation, 52.8 % youth unemployment is outreached only by Spain and Greece! Structural reforms are overdue but experiences from former enlargement rounds have shown that once a country is “in” the reform momentum came to a halt. It might also become a problem member if it claims support from the EU in resolving bilateral disputes: with all neighbouring aspirant countries (BiH, Montenegro and Serbia) Croatia still has unresolved border disputes! The possibility that Croatia uses its right of veto in the enlargement process cannot be excluded; the negative examples of Greece and Slovenia are still in the remembrance of the EU.
Special problems concerning Bosnia and Herzegovina
Certain problems exist from the special relationship between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Still the EU feels responsible for a sus- tainable development in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia as a new member now must take much of this responsibility. Brussels had to insist that no longer can ID cards of Bosnian citizens be used for easy travel- ling to Croatia, but only 40% of Bosnian citizens (Croatian Bosnians included) possess biometric passports. On the other hand, the fact that many Croats in Herzegovina already have Croatian passports will now cause an even deeper divide among the citizens in BiH into those who de facto are now EU citizens and others, the Bosniaks (Muslims) and Serbs, who remain simple Bosnian citizens without the privilege of EU pass- ports. Furthermore for Bosnia’s economy the non-fulfilment of EU re- quirements means that animal projects from BiH can not any longer be exported to Croatia which so far has been the second important export market for BiH.
Some lessons learned
The process of Croatia’s accession to the EU also has provided some lessons learned. The first certainly is that close cooperation with ICTY has been a strong condition for accession however, it should be realized that recent rules (acquittals) in The Hague have weekend the importance, the weight of this condition! A positive outcome of the accession proc- ess has been that for overcoming the condition of “no bilateral disputes must be carried into the membership” a solution has been found by ap- plying the way out of arbitrage. Another lesson certainly is that national parliaments of the member states have increased their influence during the entire negotiation and accession process with Croatia. Whether this will make future enlargement rounds easier or rather more difficult will remain to be seen.