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The bald words that conclude the European Commission’s final report on Croatia’s accession process are: “The Commission is therefore confident that Croatia will be ready for membership on 1 July 2013”. But behind that plain statement lies a far stronger assertion: that Croatia will not cause the European Union the headaches provoked by Romania and Bulgaria since their accession in 2007. 

The report, presented yesterday (26 March) by Štefan Füle, the European commissioner for enlargement, to the Croatian government, is being accompanied in private by messages that the changes wrought over the ten years since Croatia applied for membership are now irreversible, or “election-cycle-proof”, as an EU official puts it.

This is a message directed above all to the German parliament, which has yet to ratify the accession treaty signed in December 2011. German concerns were raised last October by what an EU official describes as a “wake-up call” delivered to Croatia by the Commission. Four others have also yet to ratify the treaty. That report set out ten areas where more action was needed before accession. “We had no doubt that Croatia would be ready” to join in July, an official said, but the Commission felt that “without some reinforced effort, the [final] report wouldn’t have been so rosy”.

Those ten areas form the basis of the final report. Its spotlight ranges in scale and gravity from the construction of three border posts and translation of laws, to the functioning of new institutions intended to curb corruption.

The assertion – implicit in public and sometimes explicit in private – that Croatia is no Romania or Bulgaria is reinforced by the Commission’s decision not to impose the same level of post-accession scrutiny. Both Bulgaria and, especially, Romania remain subject to a control and verification mechanism six years after they joined the EU. Croatia represents a “comprehensively different situation from Bulgaria and Romania”, says an official.

While accession to the EU and to the Schengen area of border-free travel are not formally connected, Croatia’s preparations for membership touch on areas that will be of central concern to the 25 members of the Schengen zone. There is now a very real possibility that Croatia will join the passport-free zone before either Bulgaria or Romania.

Turbulent journey

The endorsement given to Croatia suggests that the Commission has learned lessons from the enlargement of 2007 – and officials are keen to say that it has. But Croatia’s journey to the EU has sometimes been turbulent. In the nearly nine years since Croatia became a candidate for membership, the process of transforming institutions and introducing thousands of pages of legislation has occasionally stuttered because, for example, of anger at the transfer to the International Criminal Court of national heroes suspected of crimes during the Yugoslav wars and, less prominently but very potently, because of anger at the enforced restructuring – and, in some cases, resulting bankruptcy – of shipbuilders.

Fact File

Croatia’s commissioner

Croatia’s European commissioner is all but certain to be Neven Mimica, one of the country’s four deputy prime ministers and a leading figure in Croatia’s accession process.

Prime Minister Zoran Milanović has long made it clear that the post is earmarked for his fellow Social Democrat, and the European Commission’s president, José Manuel Barroso, is expected to announce his nomination over the coming month. Mimica would then face a hearing in the European Parliament.

A career diplomat with particular expertise in trade issues, Mimica first entered government in 1997, and his subsequent responsibilities have included the post of chief negotiator with the EU in 2000-01 and minister for European integration in 2001-03. He has chaired the Croatian parliament’s European integration committee for much of the past decade.

It remains unclear what new portfolio will be created and what portfolio Mimica would be given.

Personnel in the EU institutions

Croats are not rarities in the EU’s institutions: there are already 113 on the payroll of the European Commission, Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the European External Action Service, most of them as contract agents and a fifth of them in the EU’s Zagreb delegation.

But their numbers will swell substantially after July. The first open competitions were held in June 2012, and 8,844 people have applied for the 353 places so far advertised, with particular competition – 4,000 applications – for the 124 posts for general administrators (AD 5). Next month, recruitment of 35 heads of unit begins.

In the Commission, the target is to recruit 249 Croats by July 2018, with one director-general, three directors and 13 in middle management. The Parliament has earmarked 124 posts for Croats, 113 in its secretariat and 11 attached to political groupings.

A large contingent of Croats will be involved in language work: the target is to have 70 translators, 35 interpreters and 47 lawyer-linguists from Croatia.

The process has relied on a lesson learnt from Romanian and Bulgarian accession – that rule-of-law issues need to be addressed early. A senior EU official said that when Montenegro began accession talks last June, the Commission swiftly opened the ‘chapter’ of talks on judicial issues. It is likely to remain open right to the end for every would-be member, in part to maintain leverage in an area that is of most concern to existing member states.

But it also reflects a view that to convince the EU’s member states, applicants now need to show a positive, and long, record of achievement. As a result, there are now benchmarks at the start, during, and at the end of the negotiation process, and a slowdown on rule-of-law reforms would result in the Commission slowing down talks on other, easier chapters on – for example – science and research.

Eduard Kukan, a centre-right Slovak member of the European Parliament’s western Balkans delegation, said that the change of approach is “very important” and that Croatia’s success is having an “enormous impact” on other countries in the region. That is “not a cliché; it is a reality”.

Such general lessons offer little guidance, however, when bilateral issues are in question. Slovenia blocked Croatia’s talks for nine months in 2008-09 because of a dispute over their borders in the Bay of Piran; and it was only last month that Slovenia lifted its threat of a veto on accession over a dispute about deposits lost by Croatians when the break-up of the Yugoslavia precipitated the collapse of the Slovenia-based Ljubljanska Banka.

As officials and diplomats turn their attention to other

countries in the region, they know that far knottier bilateral problems will need to be unravelled.

The final to-do list

The Commission’s final report looks at steps taken by Croatia in ten areas, highlighting “priority actions”. The final steps that the Commission wanted Croatia to take included:

Shipyards: As requested, Croatia has privatised the Brodosplit shipyard (pictured), is privatising the Brodotrogir shipyard, and will soon present a restructuring plan for the 3. Maj shipyard.

Courts: The backlog of cases is being reduced, court presidents have been empowered, and transparency has been increased.

Enforcement of court rulings: The system has been adjusted and the clearance rate has improved.

Conflicts of interest: A Conflict of Interest Commission was established on 25 January and has since started procedures against 26 officials (including one against the agriculture minister, Tihomir Jakovina, though this is not noted).

Freedom of information: A new law on access to information was adopted in February, and the post of commissioner responsible for access to information has been created.

Migration: Parliament adopted a migration strategy for 2013-15 in February that also addressed the particular concern how particularly vulnerable migrants are integrated.

Border posts: Two border crossing points will be built by the date of accession, and a third is about to be completed.

Border police: Croatia recruited 467 border police in 2012, as planned, and will take on 100 more this year. “Training for maritime police needs continued attention, however.”

Police law: The Commission wanted 36 by-laws adopted. They were, and have been in force since 1 January.

Translation: Croatia has “considerably increased the pace of translating and revising” the corpus of EU law, the acquis communautaire. By mid-March, 118,000 pages had been translated and revised, suggesting that the task will be completed “before accession”.

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