Croatia Joining the European Union: EU Member Before 2010?

The Croats Should Be the Next to Follow Bulgaria and Romania

After the bloody bust-up of the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, tiny Slovenia emerged as the most stable new Balkan state and joined the European Union in 2004. Of the remaining former Yugoslav republics, Croatia is the next most compatible with the EU. Croatia applied for EU membership in 2003, the European Commission granted candidate country status in 2004, and negotiations have been ongoing. Croatian accession to the EU is now expected sometime before 2010, with 2009 as an unofficial target date.

As part of the European Union’s strategic plan for peace and prosperity in the Balkan region, Croatian accession is expected to help pave the way for other republics that need significant reform before EU membership is feasible – Macedonia (the next best candidate), Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro and Albania. Just as Croatia closely watched the most recent membership processes with Bulgaria and Romania to learn of the reforms needed, so too will these countries look toward Croatia as a role model.

The good news for Croatia is that the country remains relatively strong economically, especially when compared to some of the member states that joined in 2004 (i.e. Latvia, Slovakia, etc.). To use the EU’s own words, Croatia enjoys already reasonable macroeconomic stability and is deemed capable of competing with market forces in the EU, provided that minor reforms are undertaken. In fact, the EU is already Croatia’s biggest trading partner, and inflation rates have been kept low.

Croatia’s well-developed infrastructure, education system, democratic practices, and human rights guarantees have all won either praise or at least tentative acceptance from the EU evaluators. While some progress is needed on these fronts, there is little, if any, serious concern about these aspects of the Copenhagen criteria (European Union membership standards).