US embassy cable - 04BRUSSELS2495

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRUSSELS 002495 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/10/2014 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, HR, SI, IT, EUN, USEU BRUSSELS 
SUBJECT: CROATIA'S PROGRESS TOWARD THE EU HITS A PATCH OF 
ROUGH WATER, BUT STILL LOOKING GOOD 
 
REF: A. ZAGREB 1025 
 
     B. ZAGREB 932 
 
Classified By: Rick Holtzapple, PolOff, Reasons 1.4 B/D 
 
1. (C) As reported ref B, Croatia looks very likely to be 
officially declared a candidate for EU membership at the EU 
Summit on June 17-18.  The most important possible stumbling 
block, full cooperation with the ICTY in The Hague, remains a 
non-issue for the EU as long as ICTY Prosecutor del Ponte 
gives the GoC a positive report card (ref a).  Less certain 
is whether the EU next week will actually set a date for the 
beginning of accession negotiations, but a number of contacts 
we met during the course of a USEU-organized Conference on 
the Balkans June 9 insisted that the only debate is over 
whether the date should be January, March or June 2005.  A 
French contact insisted that his government was being 
unfairly cast as a skeptic on EU enlargement in the Balkans. 
Paris is insisting (with an eye toward the December decision 
on Turkish candidacy) that the Council reaffirm its autonomy 
over the decision whether to begin accession talks no matter 
what the Commission recommendation.  But he said France was 
prepared to see the EU set a date for Croatian negotiations 
to begin in early 2005, giving the new Commission that will 
enter into office in November 2004 enough time to prepare 
such talks. 
 
2.  (C) According to Italian, Dutch and Croatian contacts in 
Brussels, the only remaining problem Croatia has is with 
Slovenia over the Adriatic.  Croatia, Italy, Slovenia and the 
Commission all met on June 4 in Brussels and reached an 
agreement on how to revise the Croatian declaration of an 
ecological and fisheries zone.  But on June 9, our Italian 
source (protect) expressed some exasperation that Slovenia 
appeared to be reconsidering whether the deal was sufficient. 
 According to him, "Italy is prepared to accept any pragmatic 
solution, while Slovenia views the problem as a matter of 
principle."  Slovenia will force the EU PermReps (COREPER) to 
revisit the issue in their meeting on June 10.  But none of 
our contacts seemed to believe the problem would block a 
positive decision for Croatia next week.  Separately, when 
the Croatian Ambassador to the EU told us that "Croatia has 
done all that it can do" on this issue, the Commission's Head 
of Unit for Croatia whispered to us in an aside that "for 
once, that probably is true." 
 
3. (C) COMMENT:  The Croatians, and several of the other EU 
Member States, appear to have been taken by surprise at the 
hard-line Slovene approach.  As our Italian contact put it, 
"We've spent over forty years learning how to compromise. 
Some of the new Member States are willing to block things 
even when the vote is 24 to 1."  While Ljubljana is 
apparently trying to get as much leverage from next week's 
decisions as it can, it still remains among the most active 
Member States in trying to boost EU assistance and membership 
prospects for the Balkans as a whole, arguing that all of 
those countries should be included in "pre-accession" aid 
programs under the EU's next budget framework beginning in 
2007.  END COMMENT. 
 
FOSTER