EU To Give Croatia Conditional Date Despite French

EU said the French EU presidency had lobbied Brussels strongly against giving Zagreb even an indicative timetable.

The European Commission is set to give Croatia next month a conditional date for concluding EU membership talks by the end of 2009 despite French pressure against any new commitment on enlargement, EU sources say.

They said the French EU presidency had lobbied Brussels strongly against giving Zagreb even an indicative timetable after Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso made the pledge earlier this year to Prime Minister Ivo Sanader.

Croatia hopes to actually join the European Union in 2010. But France and Germany insist there can be no further expansion of the 27-nation bloc until all member states ratify a reform treaty designed to strengthen its creaking institutions.

Irish voters rejected the treaty in June, plunging the EU into new uncertainty. With the financial crisis and a recession biting, a second referendum seems unlikely in the next year.

However, the sources said Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn intends to keep his word and say in a progress report due out on Nov. 5 that the former Yugoslav republic can conclude accession talks next year provided it meets several technical benchmarks.

They include judicial reform, stronger action against corruption and organised crime, and reform of its bloated shipyards and steelworks in line with EU state aid rules.

However, the French presidency may seek to distance member governments from the Commission's stance by not asking EU leaders to endorse the regular progress reports as usual in December but merely "take note" of them, a senior EU source said.

"With enough political pressure, we could just about conclude the technical part of the negotiations by the end of 2009. That would be an achievement for this Commission and show other countries in the Western Balkans that the door remains open if they meet the conditions," the source said.

Another obstacle to Croatia's progress is EU neighbour Slovenia, which is holding up the opening of five of the 35 policy chapters into which negotiations are divided because of bilateral disputes, notably on their border.

NO GREEN LIGHT

By contrast, the Commission will not give Macedonia, which has EU candidate status, green light to start accession talks next year because it has made insufficient progress in reforms and held a flawed election this year, the sources said.

Rehn is resisting calls for an early review of Skopje's bid, arguing that until it resolves a dispute with EU member Greece over the country's name, there is no prospect of negotiations.

The EU executive is also seeking to delay membership applications from Montenegro, Albania and Bosnia in hopes that Serbia, seen as central to Balkan stability, will arrest a key war crimes suspect and join its neighbours on the EU track.

On Turkey, the Commission will welcome the democratic outcome of a recent crisis in which the Constitutional Court narrowly failed to outlaw the ruling AK party, as well as a reform of a penal code article inhibiting freedom of speech and the enactment of a law on religious foundations.

But it will urge Ankara to speed up reforms and deplore lack of progress on women's and trade union rights, and the declining proportion of women in the workforce, the sources said.

Some EU officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had misgivings about fast-tracking Croatia, a largely Roman Catholic country backed by Germany, Italy and Austria.

They argue that Zagreb faces on a lesser scale the same problems of corruption, organised crime and a weak justice system as Bulgaria, which many EU countries think was admitted prematurely in 2007.

The EU has suspended hundreds of millions or euros in aid funds to Sofia because of problems with its payments agencies.

"If this were purely about how well Croatia is doing, it would take another two or three years," the senior source said.

"Sanader still doesn't get it," another EU source said. "He still thinks that a diplomatic offensive will achieve it without having to do all the painful reforms."