On parliamentary elections in Croatia five days ago, as well as on the key elections that took place eleven years ago, a coalition that opened the country to the world and changed the relations with the Balkan neighbors, won the election.

 

The coalition with 80 seats in the Parliament won 53% of mandates in the new composition of the Parliament. My party, the Social-democratic party is in position to take the major responsibility for the political and the economic direction Croatia is going to take.

 

First of all, I would like to thank Marco Panella and the leaders of the Radical party for congratulating the victory on the parliamentary elections.

 

Today on Friday, November 9, 2011 couple of hours ago, Croatian President and Prime Minister have signed the Accession Treaty in Brussels together with 27 leaders from EU member states. Despite this important act, I believe that EU leaders have today different thoughts on their minds. Nevertheless, it is proper moment to reflect some basic facts about this eight EU enlargement since it had been founded 55 years ago. It is a meeting point between both European high hopes and deep fears.

 

Croatia is the first country which had applied for the EU membership in the 21th century. No country has ever applied for membership to the EU with a single currency crisis, with 27 members and with such serious problems in its eurozone and political instability in the neighbourhood.

 

There is some irony in the fact that Croatia and Turkey formally started negotiations in 2005, because during the nineties, both countries were similarly percieved in the eyes of Brussels, as edge-bordering Balkan countries, situated in an unstable area of the continent, but useful in the search for security solutions.

 

For Croatia, it was difficult that the story about its accession was not developing in the framework of almost routine operation of admission of new members, but in the shade of an sharp discussion about functioning and about the future of the Union.

 

Croatia got a message: You either enter competely clean, or you do not enter.

 

I often point out that it was easier to establish European Economic Union in the fifties of the last century than, in 2011 enter the European Union. Croatia faced the obligation to meet the strictest criteria. In our european story, obviously only the obligations were fixed, not the dates.

 

I am aware that we Croatians are, most probably, last in the long enlargement line for many years ahead. Now it is not impossible anymore to think that instead of enlarging, the EU is about to schrink in certain moment.

 

Unemployment in Croatia is very high with almost 310.000 people. Debt is increasing every month by new 200 million euro. Croatia suffers from lack of investment and production or import of the capital equipment. Food prices are issue of the serious concern in Croatia. Almost 40% of the average salary goes to food shopping.

 

By my opinion, serious pro-EU campaign in Croatia before referendum on accession should focus on message: "In EU no one is left alone to fight during tough times. We share burden." SME, peasants, NGO´ s want more information about how to apply for EU funds. It is not chance but challenge too; Croatian companies will soon enter 200 times bigger market then today. Membership in the EU cannot be percieved as project of a political elite just charged to citizens.

 

It would be lethal not only for the Project but for the european idea as well.

 

EU also needs a good news after so many bad ones. EU is the association whose outer borders have continuously been changing from its very beginning. The history of EU is also the history of its enlargement. It is true that no one in Brussels wants a new cycle of instability in the Balkans, but no one is hungry for the new members from that area, either.

 

Fiftyfive years after its founding, the EU has to choose in which way it wishes to or needs to response to the most serious crises since its beginning. Basically, there are two answers. One answer is the new togetherness and planning of a new enlargement, and the second directs the Union to the limited union of an asimertic partnership.

 

In this place and on this occasion, a reminder is in place that the EU was founded in 1957, in this very city that also today simbolizes the only era in history when the whole Mediterranean and the most of Europe was united in a single political union – the Roman Empire. In the meantime, the Roman empire has collapsed, but the democracy has evolved from the marginal political experiment in the antics to the dominant organization of the modern world. The democracy is the fundamental glue of the EU, and today, both are facing challenges.

 

It is obvious that EU project touches its limitations.

 

Problems of the EU can be roughly devided into two groups: (a) problems of internal functioning (euro, Schengen) – is this the crises of the monetary union or the crisis of the union as such; and (b) defining of the future relations to the bordering areas (the Balkans, north Africa, eastern Europe, the Caucasus)

 

A question arouse: will EU serve on the Balkans in next coming period as good mediator and facilitator as it has served in the Western Europe during last 50 years? In the middle of 90-ties Western Balkans have been among focal problems of the world politics. Today it is not even for the EU which is affected by serious crisis.

 

As EU spreads to the southeast, there is always a possibility that some old unsolved bilateral question from the age of cold war or even earlier, becomes the point of conflict during the negotiations.

 

The Balkan countries have little by little exited the European focus. Not just becaue of the people’s protests in the Arabic countries within the past year. Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro and Macedonia are not attractive enough to light up the enthusiasm, neither are they enough “off the stream” to mobilize the heads of EU states to the rescue mission.

 

Let s not forget that the current Europe has been built upon the dream of final peace. Accession of the Balkan countries to the Union would mean that the conflicts among Balkan countries would also in the future be resolved in the Brussels meetings.

 

I would like to conclude by seying that Croatia has a multiple regional identity that carries also the responsibility to follow the integrated and multidimensional foreign politics. In our best interest is not just the South-East’s stability, but also its European future.

 

Croatian, and I believe soon Serbian and Montenegro prosperity in the euro-integration processes unfortunately do not influence the quality or the speed of the necessary reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It seems as if this country has remained the warehouse of all the former weaknesses of Croatian, Serbian, but also politics of international community.

 

All in all, a challenge more to already challenged Europe.

 

 

 

Rome, December 9th, 2011

 

 

Tonino Picula