Member states of the European Union are leaning on the European Commission to make it possible for Croatia to conclude its talks on joining the Union by the end of next month. 

Countries backing the application want the Commission to fast-track its response to Croatia’s report on judicial reform, to be adopted by the government in Zagreb today (12 May), allowing the two sides to complete the talks on 21 June when they meet in Brussels for their final accession conference.

National government leaders meeting on 24 June are scheduled to endorse Croatia becoming the 28th member of the Union. The country’s biggest champions are Germany and Austria, but several central European member states, including Poland and Slovakia, have also stepped up their advocacy on Croatia’s behalf.

Angela Merkel and Viktor Orbán, the leaders of Germany and Hungary, said after a meeting in Berlin last week (5 May) that they hoped Croatia would be able to wrap up the talks next month. The Austrian and Slovakian foreign ministers wrote to José Manuel Barroso, the president of the Commission, in late April to urge a prompt conclusion.

Diplomats agree that Croatia has made great progress on the 33 policy chapters into which the negotiations are divided, but they see the end-of-June deadline as “ambitious” and “difficult”. A senior member state diplomat said: “The position of the Commission will be decisive.”

Polish plans

Poland, which takes over the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers from Hungary on 1 July, is preparing contingency plans should the talks drag on beyond June.

According to one diplomat, the Polish government is planning for a month of intensive negotiations so that they can be completed before the end of July. Accession talks are among the few foreign-policy responsibilities left to the rotating presidency by the EU’s Lisbon treaty.

The timing is of crucial importance for the centre-right government of Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, which faces a general election in the autumn and has seen its poll ratings plummet. A delay could further alienate a population that seems to have lost enthusiasm for EU membership. Croatians must approve joining the EU in a referendum, to be held within a month of the signing of the accession treaty.

A group of member states led by the Netherlands wants to ensure that Croatia meets the tough conditions on judicial reform, one of three policy areas in which negotiations are still under- way. (The other two are fisheries and competition policy.) Because of judicial problems in Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU in 2007, they want Croatia to build up a “track record” on reform, not just adopt legislation.

One senior diplomat involved in the negotiations said that Croatia had to prove “in a convincing way” that it was making substantial progress on four interlinked areas: judicial reform, notably the appointment of judges and prosecutors; the fight against corruption; the return of refugees from the 1991-95 war, primarily ethnic Serbs currently in neighbouring Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina; and domestic war crimes cases. “It will be very tough” to conclude the talks by the end of next month, he said, but aded that the goal was “feasible”.

Another member state diplomat said that the timely completion of Croatia’s accession bid was important as a “signal” to other countries in the Western Balkans that the enlargement process “is alive” and that the EU was keeping its “promises”.

Without such a signal it would be far more difficult to provide incentives for the other countries in the region to reform, he said, singling out the crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina – “currently the most difficult case” – as a special concern (see facing page).

As part of its accession deal, Croatia will have to privatise its five remaining shipyards. They all make losses and are expected to close down, which will mark the end of a centuries-old tradition, and see 25,000 people lose their jobs.

Progress report

Croatia is far ahead of the other four countries that are officially recognised as candidates to join the EU.

Turkey began membership negotiations at the same time as Croatia – in the autumn of 2005. But it has so far opened talks on only 13 of the 33 policy chapters into which the talks are divided. No chapter has been opened since June 2010. The ruling AK Party, which has made its EU bid a priority, is expected to retain power in a general election scheduled for 12 June. But talks to reunite Cyprus, one-third of which is occupied by Turkey, are near breakdown, and it is difficult to see how Turkey can make progress on joining the EU without a settlement being found to that long-standing dispute. All but three of the remaining chapters are blocked, most of them because of the Cyprus dispute.

Montenegro, which became a candidate in December, might later this year be given a date for the start of negotiations. Serbia expects to gain candidate status before the end of the year.

Iceland is currently in the preparatory stages of membership talks, but an unresolved banking dispute with Britain and the Netherlands and the sceptical, or outright hostile, attitude of most of its population make swift accession unlikely. Icelanders, just like Croatians, will have to approve joining the EU in a referendum.

Macedonia has been a candidate since December 2005, but Greece has vetoed the opening of membership talks because of a row over Macedonia’s name.

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