Croatia loses hope for 2009 entry

Croatia will not make the grade on Brussels-required reforms in time for a 2009 EU entry, reports the German press.

Croatian leader Ivo Sanader, and his government, have recognised that EU membership by early 2009 is unrealistic, reports German newspaper Handelsblatt.

“For us this not about an early date, but about the 100 per cent fulfilment of all EU criteria,” Croatia’s foreign minister Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic told the German-Croatian Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

The paper adds that nobody in Zagreb seems willing to name a new date for EU entry.

Membership talks with Croatia are currently at the screening stage and it has become clear that aligning Croatia’s laws with EU rules could be a very slow process indeed.

“If we continue at the current speed, we will need years to make the adjustments,” Neven Mimica, chairman of the Croatian parliament’s European integration committee, was quoted as saying.

In its November progress report, the European commission regarded improved functioning of the Croatian judiciary remained a "major challenge".

Corruption also continues to be "a serious problem", although the legal framework to combat corruption is to largely in place.

Some progress has been made, however, after the Croatian parliament adopted a series of EU-conform laws in an effort to reform the justice system.

But there are still legislative proposals sent back and forth  a ping pong between the Croatian bureaucracy and into parliament.

“From an enterprise point of view, the speed of the necessary reforms has not held step with overall economic development,” Peter Presber, head of the German-Croatian Chamber of Industry and Commerce, told Handelsblatt.

Also criticised are lengthy permission procedures, lack of transparency in public tenders, slow progress on privatisation plans and the unclear situation regarding tax laws.

One issue that will weigh heavily in Zabreb’s accession talks is its attitude towards minority rights, especially concerning Croatian Serbs.

Of the more than 300,000 Serbs who fled during the Serbian-Croatian war of the early nineties, only half have returned.

Most are older families who earn a living farming. Younger and middle-aged Croatian Serbs are not eager to return for fear of unemployment and discrimination.

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