Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-25-Speech-3-059"
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"en.20070425.3.3-059"2
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"Mr President, the Commission welcomes Mr Swoboda’s report on Croatia. It is a balanced report, which addresses the main challenges that Croatia will face on the road to membership of the European Union, not least in the political sphere. I am certain that the adoption by the European Parliament of a resolution on this report will contribute a great deal to the process of enlargement to include Croatia.
The accession negotiations with Croatia have got off to a good start. The screening process was successfully concluded in October 2006. It gave an overall insight into Croatia’s current degree of alignment with the
as well as into issues requiring further efforts. The rate at which Croatia will progress on the road to accession will largely depend on its ability to fulfil all of the necessary criteria. This is not an easy task. Croatia must bring its legislation into line with the countless EU regulations and ensure that the latter are implemented and complied with. It must also continue with its efforts to fulfil the political and economic criteria.
Six out of thirty-three chapters of the negotiations have so far been opened. For two of them, negotiations have been temporarily suspended. The objectives have been defined for nine chapters, and they will have to be achieved before negotiations are opened in sectors such as competition policy, public procurement and free movement of capital. The European Union and Croatia are preparing their negotiating positions in many other chapters. We hope to be able to open negotiations on other chapters during the German Presidency.
Generally speaking, Croatia has solid foundations on which to make further progress. There is work to be done, however, not least regarding the political and economic criteria, where difficulties remain. We believe, in particular, that there is an urgent need for Croatia to continue with its efforts and to produce concrete results where judicial system reform, public administration and the fight against corruption are concerned.
Croatia has begun to implement its judicial reform strategy, and we are starting to see the initial results. That is a positive point. However, the Croatian judicial system has serious shortcomings, and many improvements should still be made to it, as Mr Swoboda rightly observes in his report. There is a large judicial backlog. The procedures are far too slow, and we need to ensure that court decisions are executed properly and that judges become more independent and more professional. The government must also present its plan to rationalise the judicial system. Improvements must also be made to the way in which trials for war crimes are held. Corruption remains a worrying problem. Some measures have been taken as part of the anti-corruption programme, but they are only just starting to be implemented.
The implementation of the entire programme is necessary, as is a strong political will to step up efforts. The many weaknesses that remain in the area of public administration do not help make the fight against corruption any easier. Croatia urgently needs to speed up the reform process in this area. Croatia is headed in the right direction where minority rights are concerned. However, it must still meet several specific challenges in the future, concerning the repatriation of refugees. Some problems have still not been resolved, including the allocation of housing to refugees who had occupancy and rental rights before leaving Croatia.
The report rightly highlights Croatia’s positive influence in the region, not least in its role as chairman of the South-East European Cooperation Process. It does, however, stress the need to continue to encourage Croatia in its efforts to achieve good relations with its neighbours, not least by stepping up the work aimed at resolving outstanding bilateral issues, particularly those relating to the delimitation of borders.
With regard to the economic criteria, satisfactory progress has been made overall. Indeed, Croatia can be considered as having a market economy that works. It is in its interests, however, that it continue to move in the direction of an open and competitive economy, so that it can handle, in due course, the competitive pressures of the European Union. It must proceed further with the economic reforms and take some difficult decisions, not least in relation to industrial restructuring, particularly in the steel and shipbuilding sectors.
Whether or not progress is made in the negotiations depends on Croatia. Only the future will tell when Croatia will be ready for accession. The Commission position is not to set a target date for accession before the accession negotiations are at the stage of being concluded. Croatia still has a great deal left to do, and the progress of the negotiations will depend on its ability to meet the demands of accession. The Commission will continue to do all it can to help Croatia to achieve this objective."@en1
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