Balkans: Playing the EU card

Croatia this month failed to open four policy chapters in its EU accession negotiations during a 30 October conference due to reservations by its neighbor, Slovenia, caused by years of strained relations over unresolved territorial disputes.

Since gaining independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, the two countries have failed to complete the drawing of their land and sea borders.

Croatia opened membership talks with the EU in 2005 and hopes to complete the negotiations before November 2009, but it would need support from Slovenia, which joined the club in 2004.

According to Slovenian officials, Ljubljana's refusal to open new chapters in Croatia's EU accession process was simply the result of the fact that the current outgoing government is only functioning until a new cabinet is drawn up and the parliament reconvenes following September's elections. However, observers believe that the refusal has deeper motives.

The EU had hoped to open at least four out of the 35 thematic chapters in the accession negotiating process at a meeting with Croatian officials. However, Slovenia refused to back the opening of chapters covering regional policy; justice, freedom and security issues, the environment and the free circulation of capital.

All other EU member-states have given the green light for the opening of the four policy chapters. At the end, the meeting was only able to close an already-negotiated chapter on external relations.

Slovenia accused Croatia of delivering to the EU documents which include geographical maps, including the two countries' disputed maritime border. Outgoing Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said that Croatia should exclude from accession positions everything that presumes borders between Croatia and Slovenia.

"No European government would allow a candidate country to include in its membership negotiation solutions which would harm an EU member-state," Rupel said in a statement. He accused Croatian authorities of ignoring Slovenian requests and placing "greater trust in political pressure, lobbying, etc., thinking that would be enough."

Yet, Croatia insists that none of the documents it has forwarded to Brussels prejudges the identification of its borders with Slovenia.

Vesna Pusic, a member of Croatian parliament and the president of the Croatia's National Committee for Monitoring the Accession Negotiations, told ISN Security Watch she doubts that Croatia will close 12 chapters by the end of the year as the government had earlier announced, but not all are linked to the dispute with Slovenia.

Croatia's EU path

Since 2005, when the EU launched negotiations with Croatia, the country has completed entry talks on four out of 35 areas addressed. So far, Croatia has opened 21 negotiating chapters, which it must conclude for accession - a step which must be approved by all EU states, including Slovenia. 

The EU's latest progress report on Croatia said that the country was expected to reach the final phase of accession negotiation by the end of 2009 if it had taken the necessary preparatory steps. To conclude entry talks, Croatia needed to crack down on corruption and organized crime and reform its shipyards and steelworks in line with EU state aid rules, the report said.

Aside from corruption, the EU said that Croatia must still work to establish an independent judiciary, give minorities' full rights, including the return of refugees, and pursue industrial reform in line with EU aid rules.

"The dispute between Slovenia and Croatia is deeply politicized and we have no intention whatsoever of bringing bilateral issues into the accession process. Those problems should be solved in separate talks," Pusic said.

The Croatian government insists that disputes should be resolved by international arbitration. Recently, the two countries' prime ministers agreed that the third party should be the Court of Arbitration in The Hague.

However, Slovenian officials immediately rejected the possibility of international arbitration for the Bay of Piran dispute. The EU, however, hopes that the new Slovenian government, which is currently in the process of being formed, will be better equipped to resolve these issues.

The current French presidency of the EU has said that it is in touch with both Slovenia and Croatia in an attempt to reach a settlement, but no date for talks has yet been set. Pusic also said that coalition that won the Slovenian elections had already made some moves indicating that the border disputes should not affect Croatia's EU bid in the future.

The European Parliament called on the two countries to find a compromise, stressing that the border disputes were not related to Croatia's EU membership. "The EU views all border disputes as bilateral issues that do not belong to the accession negotiations," the body said in a statement.

Territorial troubles

Among the several disputes, the unresolved sea border and, in particular, jurisdiction over the Piran Bay, over which both countries claim ownership, remains the largest outstanding feud.

Under a draft agreement in 2001, Slovenia was to receive 80 percent of the Piran Bay. The deal was never ratified, and now Croatia is pressing for 50 percent of the bay.

However, there is no clear border demarcation between the two former Yugoslav republics in this area, and neither have any historical base on which to claim ownership of the bay.

The small bay does not represent much economically or geo-politically to Croatia. But for Slovenia, the border dispute is of a financial nature since the settlement will mean gaining or losing direct access to international waters and will have consequences for the country's shipping industry.

In early January, Croatia added EU members to the list of those it has barred from a no-fishing zone reaching into the middle of the Adriatic and which it said was aimed at preserving fish stocks and limiting pollution. That move affected Slovenia and Italy, which led to a series of threats made from Slovenia as well as from the European Commission, which said that Croatia's accession talks would stall unless the issue was resolved. Facing those accusations, Croatia's parliament voted in March to scrap the restriction on EU vessels.

The two countries are also locked in disputes over the mutually owned Krsko Nuclear Power Plant, Croatian citizens' foreign currency deposits in the defunct LB bank and several other border crossings.

The very first warning that Slovenia could withdraw support for Croatia's EU membership bid came in 2004, the same year in which Slovenia joined the bloc, after Croatia arrested 12 Slovenian diplomats in the Piran Bay.

Since then, the two countries have exchanged dozens of diplomatic tit-for-tat actions, and after each of them Slovenia has threatened to block Croatia's EU membership, calling a referendum against its neighbor's entry into the bloc and discouraging Slovenians from spending their holidays in Croatia. According to a May 2007 public opinion poll, some 62 percent of Slovenians would block Croatia's EU entry.

Recently, Slovenian NGO's sent a demand to Croatia to hand over the disputed bay and grant the country access to the open seas, threatening to see to it that a referendum is held against Croatia's entry into the EU.

According to Pusic, the disputes have become highly politicized, causing regular people to bare the consequences, in this case Croatian citizens facing a delay in becoming EU citizens.

The Piran Bay is less than 20 square kilometers in size and hardly visible on European maps, finding it hard to believe that either side couldn't ease up on its stance.

Yet, politicians in both countries regularly use this issue for election campaigning and raising voters sentiment. And now, more that decade later, even if either government would give in, it would mean certain political death.

Balkan intoxication

It is a problem that pervades the Balkan countries, where disputes intoxicate the public with their xenophobic and intolerant nature.

For more than a decade, EU member Greece has blocked a bid to join NATO and the EU by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) over a name dispute. FYROM insists on using its constitutional name of Macedonia, recognized under that name by more than half of the members of the UN, while Greece, whose northern region is called the same, claims the rights on that name.  

Macedonia turned in its application for EU membership in 2004 and was accepted as a candidate in 2005, but no date has been set to start entry talks due the Greek rejection.

Also, in coming years, similar disputes and accession obstructions could be implemented elsewhere in the Balkans. Using the same method, Croatia could block Bosnia and Herzegovina's EU bid, while Serbia could block Kosovo's, and so on.