Opinion on Croatia's Application for Membership of the European Union
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EUROPEAN COMMISSION Opinion on the application of Croatia for membership of the European Union COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES Brussels, 20 April 2004 COM(2004) 257 final COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION Opinion on Croatia's Application for Membership of the European Union EN EN TABLE OF CONTENTS A. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................4 a) Preface.................................................................................................................................... 4 b) Relations between the EU and Croatia .................................................................................. 6 B. CRITERIA FOR MEMBERSHIP....................................................................................... 11 1. Political Criteria ......................................................................................................... 11 1.1. Democracy and the Rule of Law................................................................................ 11 1.1.1. The Parliament ........................................................................................................... 12 1.1.2. The Executive............................................................................................................. 13 1.1.3. The Judiciary.............................................................................................................. 16 1.1.4. Anti-corruption measures........................................................................................... 19 1.2. Human Rights and the Protection of Minorities ........................................................ 20 1.2.1. Civil and Political Rights ........................................................................................... 20 1.2.2. Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ....................................................................... 23 1.2.3. Minority rights, protection of minorities and refugees .............................................. 24 1.3. Other obligations defined by EU Council conclusions of 29 April 1997 .................. 29 1.3.1. Cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)........................................................................................................................ 30 1.3.2. Regional Co-operation ............................................................................................... 32 1.4. General Evaluation..................................................................................................... 37 2. Economic Criteria ...................................................................................................... 37 2.1. Economic developments ............................................................................................ 38 2.2. Assessment in terms of the Copenhagen criteria ....................................................... 42 2.3. General evaluation ..................................................................................................... 53 3. Ability to assume the obligations of membership...................................................... 54 Chapter 1: Free movement of goods........................................................................................ 55 Chapter 2: Free movement of persons ..................................................................................... 58 Chapter 3: Freedom to provide services.................................................................................. 60 Chapter 4: Free movement of capital ...................................................................................... 63 Chapter 5: Company law ......................................................................................................... 65 Chapter 6: Competition policy................................................................................................. 67 2 Chapter 7: Agriculture............................................................................................................. 69 Chapter 8: Fisheries................................................................................................................. 74 Chapter 9: Transport ............................................................................................................... 76 Chapter 10: Taxation ............................................................................................................... 78 Chapter 11: Economic and Monetary Union........................................................................... 81 Chapter 12: Statistics............................................................................................................... 82 Chapter 13: Social policy and employment ............................................................................. 84 Chapter 14: Energy.................................................................................................................. 87 Chapter 15: Industrial policy................................................................................................... 90 Chapter 16: Small and medium-sized enterprises.................................................................... 92 Chapter 17: Science and research ........................................................................................... 94 Chapter 18: Education and training ........................................................................................ 94 Chapter 19: Telecommunications and information technologies ............................................ 95 Chapter 20: Culture and audio-visual policy .......................................................................... 97 Chapter 21: Regional policy and coordination of structural instruments ............................... 98 Chapter 22: Environment....................................................................................................... 100 Chapter 23: Consumer and health protection........................................................................ 103 Chapter 24: Co-operation in the field of justice and home affairs ........................................ 105 Chapter 25: Customs union.................................................................................................... 110 Chapter 26: External relations .............................................................................................. 111 Chapter 27: Common foreign and security policy................................................................. 113 Chapter 28: Financial control ............................................................................................... 115 Chapter 29: Financial and budgetary provisions.................................................................. 116 C. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ...................................................................... 117 1. Political Criteria ................................................................................................................. 118 2. Economic Criteria .............................................................................................................. 118 3. Capacity to take on the other obligations of membership.................................................. 119 Annexes 3 A. INTRODUCTION a) Preface Application for Membership Croatia presented its application for Membership of the European Union on 21 February 2003 and the Council of Ministers decided on 14 April 2003 to implement the procedure laid down in Art. 49 of the Treaty on the European Union, which states: "Any European State which respects the principles set out in Article 6(1) may apply to become a member of the Union. It shall address its application to the Council, which shall act unanimously after consulting the Commission and after receiving the assent of the European Parliament, which shall act by an absolute majority of its component members." Art. 6.1 states "The Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law, principles which are common to the Member States." That is the legal framework within which the Commission submits the present Opinion. Context of the Opinion The Croatian application for membership is part of an historic process, in which the Western Balkan countries are overcoming the political crisis of their region and orienting themselves to join the area of peace, stability and prosperity created by the Union. In the “Thessaloniki Agenda for the Western Balkans” adopted by the European Council of June 2003, the EU stressed “that the pace of further movement of the Western Balkans countries towards the EU lies in their own hands and will depend on each country’s performance in implementing reforms, thus respecting the criteria set by the Copenhagen European Council of 1993 and the Stabilisation and Association Process conditionality” The European Council in Copenhagen in June 1993 concluded that: “The associated countries in Central and Eastern Europe that so desire shall become members of the Union. Accession will take place as soon as a country is able to assume the obligations of membership by satisfying the economic and political conditions. Membership requires: – that the candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities; – the existence of a functioning market economy, as well as