Right, so I started writing something about Ukraine, Russia and Nato. There wasn’t an issue of time and energy for once, but I discovered couldn’t quite decide what I thought. I see some problems with this concept, but will soldier on…
Bob and SK wonders about Croatia’s EU prospects. Croatia is closer than other prospect countries of becoming members, but the Irish no dashed their hopes of a quick entry. France and some other countries stance here seems pretty indefensible to me, but maybe they’ll relent if the treaty woes goes on long enough. A new report points out what we all knew, that the EU’s ticking along nicely without a new treaty, and two or three more members won’t change that. I don’t know at what point there would be trouble, but my gut feeling is the EU could accommodate more members without paralysis than the EU policy elites seem to think.
In any case, I think Romania and Bulgaria would have maybe benefited from a longer wait, and the same is true of most current candidate countries, maybe even including Croatia.
Feed: A Fistful of Euros
August 17th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
[...] afoe, David Wemann, By request: Croatia and the EU [...]
August 18th, 2008 at 11:43 am
I completely agree with you regarding Bulgaria and Romania. The incentive to put an end to such things as corruption and trafficking sure did decrease/disappear after being treated with a membership before the union demands for change were acctually fulfilled. The union kinda dropped the ball on this, as far as I am concerned.
August 20th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
I think Croatia is a bit different from Romania and Bulgaria, although Croatia and Bulgaria are sharing the 64th position on Transparency Internationals perceived corruption table.
Croatia looks to be more integrated into Europe economically, and it is a much smaller country with a prospect of much smaller EU funds at play. (It is not an agriculture oriented economy at all).
I believe that including another former Yugoslav republic into EU would have a very positive spill over effect on Montengro, Bosnia, Macedonia, and even on Serbia. It would also benefit EU citizens - Croatia is a major holiday destination and I believe that even such tourism brings people closer.
All in all, I believe that there are few risks on the EU side, and the capacity to embrace another candidate would also show strength in these troubled times.
http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2007