Croatia 'corruption' could stall EU entry, Barroso warns

Croatia 'corruption' could stall EU entry, Barroso warns06.12.2006 - 17:37 CET By Andrew Rettman

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Brussels is shifting the political focus onto Croatian internal reforms as a potential barrier to speedy EU entry, while brushing under the carpet its own problems with institutional capacity after the EU constitution failure. "The key to the speed of [enlargement] is very much in the hands of Croatia," European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said after meeting Croat president Stipe Mesic in Brussels on Wednesday (6 December).
important to set a date so we can focus our efforts, but at this stage I cannot commit the commission to a date, so I will not do it," he added, saying Zagreb must catch up on ethnic minority rights, judicial reform and "corruption" first.The remarks differ from Mr Barroso's statement on 25 September that the EU can only take in Croatia after it has a new Treaty, because the current EU pact only makes provisions for 27 commissioners, covering Romania and Bulgaria accession only. "There's no change - that position [on the EU Treaty] still holds good," Mr Barroso's spokeswoman told EUobserver Wednesday. "But he didn't say that today. He gave a very clear message to Croatia on reform." For his part, Mr Mesic repeated that "Croatia is determined to become the 28th member of the European Union," adding that "any slowdown of enlargement would be equal to questioning the entire [EU] project."On Tuesday, Mr Mesic had told NGO Friends of Europe that "too much has been invested" into accession preparations in war-scarred Croatia for it to fall prey to EU enlargement fatigue or constitutional wrangles. Zagreb's foreign office has prepared a legal solution to the EU institutional problem, proposing that small insertions into its EU accession treaty could remove the need for wider EU Treaty reform prior to enlargement. Analysts also point out that Brussels' ever-more-frequent mentioning of "corruption" as a Croatian problem ignores independent reports by NGO Transparency International that it is the least corrupt of the Western Balkan states, and less corrupt than Romania. Meanwhile, Mr Barroso's EU colleagues are less shy of dangling dates in front of Zagreb, which had originally hoped to join the EU by June 2009 in time for the next European Parliament elections and new commission appointments.European Parliament president Josep Borrel told Mr Mesic on Tuesday that 2009 should remain the target date, Balkan agency DTT-NET.COM reports, while enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn on 1 December said "the end of the decade" is a realistic aim.