Croatia to Complete EU Negotiations by End of June

Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi has said that Croatia’s EU accession negotiations will be concluded by the end of June, in the next week or so. “There is no reason for the talks to continue after that,” he was quoted as saying.

German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung has reported that Croatia is expected to join the EU on the 1st of July 2013. Other analysts have said that they expected it to join sometime in 2012.

Meanwhile the familiar duo for dampening EU hopes, France and the Netherlands continue their insistence that Croatia only be allowed to join the EU if it fulfils all commitments in the areas of judicial reforms and fight with corruption. People will be forgiven for thinking that this was normally the case anyway.

The pair have called for the postponement of Croatia’s accession if the assessment of its efforts in these areas should be negative, despite the reports all being positive so far.

On one hand the opposition makes you slightly miffed after the hoops Croatia has jumped through in its efforts to meet EU approval. However, on the other hand you can’t blame them, because Bulgaria and Romania jumped through the same hoops and got the same glowing reports, only for corruption to emerge as big a problem as ever it was almost as soon as their membership was sealed.

In that sense a little extra scrutiny could be good for Croatia, if its efforts to stop corruption can be proven to have permanent results. But then, what country is really free of corruption? Expenses scandal anyone?