Croatia gets a boost from siege of Vienna

The EU opened accession negotiations with Croatia on Monday night (3 October), shortly after the ceremony launching membership talks with Turkey.

This decision followed a positive report by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Croatia's co-operation with the tribunal. Carla del Ponte told EU foreign ministers on Monday: "For a few weeks now, Croatia has been co-operating fully with us and is doing everything it can to locate and arrest Ante Gotovina."

The negotiations, which were planned to start last March, were postponed because of Croatia's perceived lack of effort to apprehend Gotovina, the runaway Croatian Army General who is suspected of having committed war crimes against Serbs during the war in 1995. The European Council had made the opening of negotiations conditional on full co-operation with the ICTY.

Some Croatian analysts think negotiations were only opened because Croatia's main supporter in the EU, Austria, blocked talks with Turkey. EU officials, as well as del Ponte, rejected any direct connection between Croatia and Turkey. Del Ponte insisted she was under no pressure to change her report. But just three days before announcing Croatia's full co-operation with the tribunal she said on Friday (30 September) that she was disappointed by its performance.

Analysts do not think the Croatian government has undertaken any new steps in order to apprehend Gotovina in the last few days. They claim that Croatia has once again become a pawn in the games of the 'big powers'. This time, to its advantage.

The past months, however, seem to have brought prosecutors closer to Gotovina, who is still seen as a popular hero by the average Croatian: Hrvoje Petrac, allegedly Gotovina's main sponsor, was arrested in Greece and is to be questioned shortly.

Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said that Monday was a "big day" for Croatia. He also said that Zagreb would continue working on the Gotovina case. "We shall continue until Ante Gotovina is in The Hague," Sanader was quoted as saying. Negotiations can be broken off at any time if Croatia stops co-operating with the ICTY.

Most media in Croatia seem optimistic about Croatia's membership talks. Unusually, photographs of a smiling Carla del Ponte - who was often called "one of the most hated persons in the region" - were published, for the first time. One political weekly even published an interview with the prosecutor 's former husband.

In Austria, the respected newspaper Die Presse wrote on Tuesday (4 October) "that although Croatia's name was not even mentioned once" during the long negotiations, aimed at convincing Austria to accept opening talks with Turkey, the country was "the big winner in the war of nerves in Luxembourg". Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Sch�ssel said on TV that the government in Vienna strongly supported Croatia's bid.

Although the Austrian government never officially put Croatia and Turkey into the same basket, it repeatedly criticised the EU's "double standards" on the two countries. It claimed that the EU was, on the one hand, tolerating Turkey's human rights abuses, and, on the other hand, putting Croatia's membership on ice just because of one runaway man.

Behind the scenes, Austria insisted that it was not fair to start talks with Turkey and leave out Croatia, which is "closer" to the EU.

Austria has strong ties to Croatia, which used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and is the largest foreign investor in Croatia. The latter is also a major holiday destination for Austrians.

Austrian media watched the Turkish press coverage of Austria's role in the negotiations in Luxembourg closely. These included headlines such as "Turkish-siege-of-Vienna-trauma", "Vienna fell" or a "Small-country syndrome".

Turkish newspapers voiced their disappointment with Austria's role in the protracted negotiations that preceded the opening of talks and with Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik's "stubbornness".

It also wrote about "Austrian xenophobia". Die Presse alleged that the leading newspaper in Turkey had already prepared an alternative cover page with a full-page portrait of Adolf Hitler, if Austria continued to block the opening of negotiations.

There are about 130,000 Turks in Austria. The anti-Turkish sentiments remain strong because of the perceived unwillingness of most to integrate.

Croatia's road to the EU

• Croatia was part of the Yugoslav federation before and after the Second World War
• 1991 - Croatia declares independence, leading to war with the rest of Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia and with the Serb community inside Croatia
• 1992 - EU establishes diplomatic relations with Zagreb
• 1999 - EU proposes a stabilisation and association process for five south-east European countries, including Croatia
• October 2001 - Croatia signs a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU
• February 2003 - Croatia applies for EU membership
• June 2004 - the European Council gives Croatia the go-ahead to open membership negotiations
• December 2004 - EU announces accession talks could open in Spring 2005, provided that Croatia co-operates fully with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague
• 16 March 2005 - EU foreign ministers postpone the launch of accession talks, arguing that Croatia had not met the above condition
• 3 October 2005 - accession talks start

What's next for Croatia

• Aim of the accession negotiations: candidate country adopts EU body of laws (acquis communautaire), adapts its legal framework and administrative capacity so that it can apply EU law
• Membership talks with Croatia are based on 35 negotiation chapters on such issues as environment protection, competition policy or research policy
• Difficult issues in negotiations: environment protection, reform of the judiciary and the fight against corruption, agriculture, phasing out of state aid
• The chapters on fisheries and transport are also expected to take more time to close
• A key political issue is the return of refugees and the situation of minorities, especially the Serb population
• Croatia's ties with its neighbours, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia-Montenegro, and the protection of minorities will also come under the spotlight
• A Eurobarometer poll in September found that the confidence of the Croatian people in the EU had fallen to 25% from 42%Aim of the accession negotiations: candidate country adopts EU body of laws (acquis communautaire), adapts its legal framework and administrative capacity so that it can apply EU law
• Membership talks with Croatia are based on 35 negotiation chapters on such issues as environment protection, competition policy or research policy
• Difficult issues in negotiations: environment protection, reform of the judiciary and the fight against corruption, agriculture, phasing out of state aid
• The chapters on fisheries and transport are also expected to take more time to close
• A key political issue is the return of refugees and the situation of minorities, especially the Serb population
• Croatia's ties with its neighbours, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia-Montenegro, and the protection of minorities will also come under the spotlight
• A Eurobarometer poll in September found that the confidence of the Croatian people in the EU had fallen to 25% from 42%
• Helena Varendorff is a freelance journalist based in Vienna.

Analysis feature on the EU's decision to open accession negotiations with Croatia on 3 October 2005, shortly after the ceremony launching membership talks with Turkey. This decision followed a positive report by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Croatia's co-operation with the tribunal. Article looks at Austria's role in the decision-finding.

European Commission: DG Enlargement: Croatia http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/countries/detailed-country-information/croatia/index_en.htm

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