Barroso: No Putting Off Croatia's 2013 EU Accession

Bulgaria in EU | June 17, 2011, Friday // 19:05|  views

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso (R) welcomes Croatian President Ivo Josipovic prior to a meeting at the EU council headquarters in Brussels, Belgium 17 June 2011. EPA/BGNES

Croatia's planned accession to the European Union in 2013 should not be postponed because of concerns about the country's legal standards, according to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

"We have not proposed a clause for a possible postponement of its accession, it is because we believe Croatia is ready," Barroso said Friday, as cited by DPA, after meeting Croatian President Ivo Josipovic in Brussels.

Croatia's EU accession is under increased scrutiny after in 2007 two other Bulgarian countries, Bulgaria and Romania, were admitted to the EU in spite issues with organized crime and corruption, but only after the EC introduced the so called Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, a tool for post-accession monitoring with annual progress reports on problem areas published each July by the Commission.

Last week the European Commission made it clear that Croatia is ready to complete its accession talks but that it will be subjected to a monitoring mechanism until its accession date, July 1, 2013. The EC will thus produce reports every six months on Croatia's progress and will have the possibility to send early warning letters to authorities in Zagreb, EC President Barroso explained Friday.

"I don't believe that any additional monitoring would be likely to slow down Croatia's progress towards accession and I really don't think any monitoring would be a problem for us," Josipovic is quoted as saying.

The EU affairs ministers of the EU member states, meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday, are expected to finalize an agreement on what the monitoring scheme of Croatia will look like. That step is set to clear the way for Croatia to formally end its accession talks before the end of the month.

Once that is done, Croatia's accession treaty with the EU will have to be ratified by all EU 27 member states, which is expected to take about 2 years.

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Tags: Croatia, Jose Manuel Barroso, EC, European Commission, Ivo Josipovic, EU accession, enlargement

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