CROATIA'S PROGRESS TOWARD THE EU HITS A PATCH OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRUSSELS 002495

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/10/2014
TAGS: PREL PGOV HR SI IT EUN USEU BRUSSELS
SUBJECT: CROATIA'S PROGRESS TOWARD THE EU HITS A PATCH OF
ROUGH WATER, BUT STILL LOOKING GOOD

REF: A. ZAGREB 1025


B. ZAGREB 932

Classified By: Rick Holtzapple, PolOff, Reasons 1.4 B/D


1. (C) As reported ref B, Croatia looks very likely to be
officially declared a candidate for EU membership at the EU
Summit on June 17-18. The most important possible stumbling
block, full cooperation with the ICTY in The Hague, remains a
non-issue for the EU as long as ICTY Prosecutor del Ponte
gives the GoC a positive report card (ref a). Less certain
is whether the EU next week will actually set a date for the
beginning of accession negotiations, but a number of contacts
we met during the course of a USEU-organized Conference on
the Balkans June 9 insisted that the only debate is over
whether the date should be January, March or June 2005. A
French contact insisted that his government was being
unfairly cast as a skeptic on EU enlargement in the Balkans.
Paris is insisting (with an eye toward the December decision
on Turkish candidacy) that the Council reaffirm its autonomy
over the decision whether to begin accession talks no matter
what the Commission recommendation. But he said France was
prepared to see the EU set a date for Croatian negotiations
to begin in early 2005, giving the new Commission that will
enter into office in November 2004 enough time to prepare
such talks.


2. (C) According to Italian, Dutch and Croatian contacts in
Brussels, the only remaining problem Croatia has is with
Slovenia over the Adriatic. Croatia, Italy, Slovenia and the
Commission all met on June 4 in Brussels and reached an
agreement on how to revise the Croatian declaration of an
ecological and fisheries zone. But on June 9, our Italian
source (protect) expressed some exasperation that Slovenia
appeared to be reconsidering whether the deal was sufficient.
According to him, "Italy is prepared to accept any pragmatic
solution, while Slovenia views the problem as a matter of
principle." Slovenia will force the EU PermReps (COREPER) to
revisit the issue in their meeting on June 10. But none of
our contacts seemed to believe the problem would block a
positive decision for Croatia next week. Separately, when
the Croatian Ambassador to the EU told us that "Croatia has
done all that it can do" on this issue, the Commission's Head
of Unit for Croatia whispered to us in an aside that "for
once, that probably is true."


3. (C) COMMENT: The Croatians, and several of the other EU
Member States, appear to have been taken by surprise at the
hard-line Slovene approach. As our Italian contact put it,
"We've spent over forty years learning how to compromise.
Some of the new Member States are willing to block things
even when the vote is 24 to 1." While Ljubljana is
apparently trying to get as much leverage from next week's
decisions as it can, it still remains among the most active
Member States in trying to boost EU assistance and membership
prospects for the Balkans as a whole, arguing that all of
those countries should be included in "pre-accession" aid
programs under the EU's next budget framework beginning in

2007. END COMMENT.

FOSTER