Mid-2011 target date for Croatia's EU accession treaty

  AUGUSTIN PALOKAJ from waz.euobserver.com

Croatia's accession negotiations with the European Union, a seemingly never-ending story, could finish in some eight months' time.

Under this scenario, the accession treaty would probably be signed at the end of the Hungarian EU Presidency, in mid-2011. Although the EU refrains from setting the date of accession for any new member, diplomatic sources from different EU countries confirmed to this website that the end of February/beginning of March next year was "the unofficial target date" to conclude the technical part of Croatia's accession talks. If this deadline is met, the accession treaty could be signed in June.

The European Commission declared last year that, provided Croatia meets the necessary criteria and benchmarks, accession talks could be concluded before the end of 2010. But this no longer looks realistic. Croatia has yet to open three more chapters, including the most challenging one (chapter 23) on the judiciary and fundamental rights. EU sources said that this part of the negotiations, known as "the chapter of chapters," can be opened at the end of this month. This would give Croatia until the beginning of next year to focus on meeting the "closing benchmarks," or requirements for successful conclusion of a negotiating chapter.

The Netherlands has blocked the opening of Chapter 23, arguing that Croatia did not fully comply with the requests by Serge Brammertz, Chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). According to EU diplomats, the Netherlands has lifted its objections on the opening of the chapter, following the acceptance of its request to make full co-operation of Croatia with the ICTY a closing benchmark instead.

Croatia will most probably open two more chapters before the summer - on defense and foreign policy (previously blocked by Slovenia), and on competition.

But accession talks can still be affected by circumstances beyond Croatia's influence. One of them is Germany's push for changes to the EU's Lisbon Treaty to allow tougher sanctions against member states not respecting joint fiscal rules. If agreed, such modifications could be introduced and submitted for ratification together with Croatia's accession treaty. Croatia hopes this will not result in a further delay in joining the EU.

Croatia applied for EU membership in spring 2003 and opened accession talks in October 2005. Even pessimists at the time did not predict that negotiations would last as long as they did. The European Commission insists Croatia has to be 100 percent prepared before it can become a member. They want to use the country as a good example for the other candidates from the Western Balkans.

Diplomats from different EU member states, even those who strongly support Croatia's membership, admit that the "lessons learned" by the EU in admitting the insufficiently prepared Bulgaria and Romania are a reason for the strictness in measuring Croatia's progress. This is why many predict any future enlargement process will be more difficult that the previous ones.