Slovenian MP: Croatia Paid Brussels for EC Report

Croatia should enter the EU together with regional countries, or it will never support Serbia or Montenegro’s entry, says Jelincic.

After Croatia received a positive progress report by the European Commission, and finally received a conditional deadline for finishing the negotiations, the Slovenian ultra-nationalist, the head of the Slovenian People’s Party Zmago Jelincic, claims that Croatia paid Brussels for such a report. He says that he will support the blockade of the negotiations until Croatia does something about its open issues.

What do you expect from the new mandate holder of the Slovenian Cabinet Borut Pahor regarding relations with Croatia?

I think that Pahor will have a stricter stance towards Croatia, and that he will bring forward the legal viewpoint, and will not falter to European Union pressure that is pushing Croatia. Europe wants Croatia under its wing even though there are legal documents that do not allow new expansions. The Lisbon Treaty has not yet been ratified, and the Nice Treaty does not allow EU expansion over 27 members. Only after the Lisbon Treaty is ratified should Croatia be talked about, and there are still certain chapters that cannot be solved.

Do you think that Croatia will become a member of the European Union alone, or in a packet with neighbouring countries?

It would be better for the European Union and Croatia to enter the Union together with the complete Balkans. That would be good for calming down the region, and besides, Croatia will never allow Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina and finally Montenegro to enter the EU individually.

But Brussels sent positive news to Croatia this week in which Croatian negotiations could end next year…

This is the actions of certain people in the European Union that gained some services in return, like money, assets and real estate, and even some honorary PhDs and awards. It is hard to say that Europe is fighting for a legal thing, and the positive European Commission report is a result of the very good lobbying by the Croatian diplomacy in Brussels. Besides that, recently an intermediary agreement has been pushed forward to replace the Lisbon Treaty, and that leaked into the public a few days ago, and should have been secret.

Which are those conditions that would improve the bilateral relations between Croatia and Slovenia?

Firstly, Croatia need to clean up their history, and that is who owned the Adriatic sea until the collapse of Yugoslavia. It was not Croatian and that needs to be taken as a fact. Secondly, an international authoritative conference should be founded for the former Yugoslavia. There is not de-facto war anymore, but de jure it still exists. This is something like the case of North and South Korea.

Can Slovenia block the Croatian negotiations?

It can, of course, that is a great possibility. I will support a blockade if the Croatian side does not do something. That is an unbefitting country that wants to enter the European Union, it cannot go like that, and its entry under these circumstances would mean the collapse of the Union.

Okay, but for a few months now there has been, lets call it, a battle between Croatia and Slovenia which functions in the way that Slovenia accuses Croatia of defining its borders and threatens to block the negotiations, and Croatia denies it. Until when will this be?

Croatia claims that it is not defining its borders, but it pushes what it likes in the maps. Those maps show that something like that is unacceptable.

What do you expect from the new American president Barack Obama?

No American president cares about other nations besides America. That is the only region that they are interested in. If Obama makes some positive changes in America as far as the economy is concerned, that will be good for Europe as well.