Merkel in Zagreb to praise Croatian "benchmark" EU effort

Aug 22, 2011, 15:13 GMT

Zagreb - German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Zagreb Thursday, kicking off a mini-tour of Croatia and Serbia with the message that European Union standards are the only key or obstacle to their membership.

Merkel is expected to praise Croatia's reform effort, which has allowed it to conclude accession talks with the EU and hope to become only the second Western Balkan member, after Slovenia, on July 1, 2013.

'I want to pay respect to the long road Croatia has covered on its way to EU,' Merkel told the Croatian HRT prior to her visit.

'The Croatian government worked a lot so the European Commission could say that Croatia can now join - and Germany will naturally support it.'

The German chancellor was due to meet Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, President Ivo Josipovic and depart for Belgrade after dinner.

Croatian media point out that Merkel was arriving in an atmosphere of 'traditionally good relations,' two months after Zagreb completed its accession talks with the EU.

Germany has always been a staunch supporter of Croatia, becoming the first EU country to recognize the nation after it split from Yugoslavia in June 1991, and is the country's second largest trade partner, after Italy, and third-largest investor.

Merkel said she carries 'double congratulations' to Zagreb, one for the 20th anniversary of Croatian independence and the other for the completion of the accession talks.

German government officials say that Berlin recognizes the desire of Balkan states to join the EU after years of wars and problems. 'For these states it's equivalent to re-entering Europe,' one source told the German Press Agency dpa.

Merkel's strong praise of Croatia's reform effort is a signal to others that they need to follow the blueprint and achieve the new benchmarks set in its accession talks.

Sources estimate that Croatia is now superior in justice and interior policy to Romania and Bulgaria, which joined in 2007, but remain plagued by inefficient and corrupt police and courts.

Merkel also said she wanted to tell other Western Balkan states - Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania - that they too are welcome to the EU regardless of the economic hardship of some member states, but that they must meet the criteria first.

'We opened the perspective of EU membership to all countries in the Western Balkans and that depends solely on whether they meet the conditions,' she said in her interview with HRT.

'We will not allow some countries to stand in front of the door because other countries have problems with debts.'

In her words, 'it means that Serbia must reasonably cooperate with Kosovo; Bosnia and Herzegovina must have a government; and Macedonia must resolve its name dispute with Greece.'

After meeting Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor and President Ivo Josipovic in Zagreb, Merkel was scheduled to travel to Belgrade, where she faces a far less pleasant leg of the tour, with renewed problems in Serbia's former province Kosovo topping the agenda.

Kosovo, with its mostly ethnic Albanian population, split from Serbia in 2008, after fighting its rule in 1999, and was quickly recognized by the leading Western powers, including the United States and 22 out of the 27 EU nations.

But Belgrade regards Kosovo as its soil and refuses to treat it as an equal partner even in the talks on real-life problems stemming from Kosovo's secession that the EU facilitated in March.

In July, talks broke off when Serbia refused to allow Kosovo goods through its borders. That resulted in a trade war, then tension and violence over border crossings in the ethnic Serb-dominated northern Kosovo.

Merkel is expected to be blunt in her talks with Serbian President Boris Tadic on Tuesday and again stress that Germany will not consider border changes, with the aim of discouraging Serbian politicians from proposing partition of Kosovo along ethnic lines.

With polls due in 2012 and under the pressure of economic crisis and growing Euro-scepticism at home, Tadic hopes that the EU will officially recognize Serbia as a membership candidate in October and also set the date for the start of the accession talks.

German sources said that the former is likely, but the latter not.

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