CROATIA: Croatia joins the European Union, two decades since fighting itself free of Yugoslavia

Record ID: 735420

  • Title: CROATIA: Croatia joins the European Union, two decades since fighting itself free of Yugoslavia
  • Date: 1st July 2013
  • Summary: FRONT PAGE OF NOVI LIST DAILY, READING "WE HAVE EUROPE!" FRONT PAGE OF 24 SATA DAILY, READING "EUROPE!"
  • Embargoed: 16th July 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Croatia
  • Country: Croatia
  • Topics: International Relations,Economic News,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA17O3VNKDROBTVYSRQHDHQPFQM
  • Story Text: The morning after Croatia's accession to the European Union, residents of the capital Zagreb on Monday (July 1) expressed cautious optimism about what EU membership might bring.
    At midnight on Sunday (June 30) to Beethoven's Ode to Joy, the anthem of the European Union, Croatia joined the EU.
    Thousands celebrated the accession of the bloc's 28th member, setting aside for a moment the troubles of a country in its fifth year of recession.
    The mainly Catholic country of 4.4 million people becomes only the second of the seven states carved from federal Yugoslavia to enter the EU, following Slovenia in 2004.
    It marks a milestone in the region's recovery from the wars of the 1990s, which gave the world the term "ethnic cleansing" and killed over 120,000 people, 20,000 of them in Croatia.
    It is also the first expansion of the EU eastwards since 2007, when Romania and Bulgaria joined, and the "Big Bang" enlargement of 2004 when 10 new members came aboard.
    The global economic crisis has since posed unprecedented challenges to the unity of the bloc, undermining popular support and fuelling doubts over the wisdom of further expansion to the former Yugoslavia.
    The troubles of the EU have fed into doubts among many Croatians over their future inside the bloc, the pull of which helped stabilise the Balkans.

    "In any case, there will be benefits (from EU membership). (It will help) introduce a sense of responsibility, work and discipline, things which are necessary for everything to function properly. Without those things, there is nothing," said small business owner Mladen Knez.

    "Anything is possible, it is possible that we end up doing well, which is what I would like, for my people, and also for others, those who accepted us, with lots of difficulties," said pensioner from Zagreb, Mirko Ivancan.

    "In short, it (the EU entry ceremony) was very nice, and I saw that people saw it as confirmation of what they had asked for really. I think it (EU membership) is a positive thing, primarily for young people," said Ljubica Roscic, who returned to Zagreb after having lived in Switzerland for more than 40 years.
    European Union and Croatian officials on Monday (July 1) unveiled the 'Europe House' in a super-modern marble and glass building just off Zagreb's central square.
    Croatian and EU flags went up as European Parliament President Martin Schulz and President of European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso addressed the gathering, emphasising the huge progress Croatia had made from a war-torn country less than two decades ago to a member country of the European Union.

    "A mere 15 years ago this region, Croatia, suffered a terrible war, grave human rights violations and displacements, and today, we are welcoming Croatia into our great European family," Schulz said.

    "Some time ago, together with President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, and President of European Council, we were receiving on behalf of the European Union the Nobel peace prize. It was precisely about this idea of reconciliated, united, Europe, that we were thinking. How big, how potent is this project, that is able to unite a continent that before was divided," Barroso said.
    To join the EU, Croatia has gone through seven years of tortuous and often unpopular EU-guided reform.
    It has extradited more than a dozen Croatian and Bosnian Croat military and political leaders charged with war crimes, sold shipyards steeped in tradition but deep in debt, and launched a fight against graft that saw former prime minister Ivo Sanader jailed.
    The country's Adriatic coastline, from the hills of Istria in the north to the medieval city of Dubrovnik in the south, has become a magnet for some 10 million tourists every year.
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