Day 33: The Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and EU Briefing

6/8/22

Today, we attended briefings at the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The board of representatives was overwhelmingly (and inspiringly so) female. We got a background in Croatian history, and a presentation on Croatia-US relations.

Croatia is celebrating 30 years of international recognition this year. They transitioned from a command economy/one party system to the more liberal democracy that exists today. This was especially important for their journey to EU membership.

This is huge point of pride for Croatia, being the only Western Balkan nation to have achieved this goal. The Minister for the EU spoke a bit more about this. They signed their accession in 2001, became a candidate in 2004, and had negotiations from 2005 to 2011. She mentioned that these "negotiations" don't really include flexibility of what has to happen in order to obtain membership, but instead when. In the next six months, Croatia will be getting rid of the Kuna, their currency in exchange for the euro. The minister said this will not greatly affect their economy since the Kuna is already tied to the euro, but will let them have a role in decision making.

The Shengen zone admission comes next year. This is especially important, because it would make Croatia a southern border of the EU, so they have to prove their ability to secure their borders against criminal activity and the migration crisis, specifically their border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Their goal is to position themselves toward the center of the EU, and they achieved this recently when they had their turn in the rotating presidency of the EU.

They believe joining the Shengen area will boost their tourism as an already popular vacation destination country, and of course cut down on time lost in border queues.

We asked about their take on EU 'enlargement fatigue' and the situation of their neighbors Serbia and Montenegro as candidate countries, who became candidates at the same time Croatia did. They stressed the length of this process, which for them was 13 years and currently for the other two Western Balkan nations is 20. The minster offered the explanation that the EU is not ready to accept new members, and it may be another 10 years before that happens. When I asked, she agreed that Montenegro has the best shot at membership next, and referred to Serbia's solving its Kosovo issue as the prerequisite to their admission. She also mentioned that Serbia is otherwise not fulfilling all its efforts. This is interesting to me as it is "one of their top priorities," yet there is so much they are not fulfilling.

Later, I walked through the city a bit. Zagreb impressed me with its green spaces and inclusions. Here we have two streets lined with linden and sycamore, both urban warriors, but they even gave them spacious planting pits in Zagreb! Perhaps among the largest space given to each tree in a city I've seen yet.

For dinner, we had ribs reminiscent of good ol' Southern US cooking at the famous Grif restaurant, where they have their own microbrewery. Then came an impressive dessert plate! Smiles and laughter and good food were shared as we collectively realized our trip was coming to an end soon.

Ćao for now...