Croatia Once Again Does Not Allow Opening of Chapter 23

At the meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives, the highest EU body after the Council of Ministers, all the member countries were in favor of the opening of Chapter 23 in the pre-accession negotiations with Serbia, except Croatia.

The Netherlands, which will be chairing the EU until July, wants agreements to be reached and Chapters 23 and 24 in the negotiations with Serbia opened before the end of its mandate, and France and Germany are decisively supporting the Dutch stand, stating that Serbia had fulfilled all the set criteria and that the opening of these chapters is necessary to maintain the credibility of the EU enlargement process.

The sources at the meeting told BETA that nobody could force Croatia to allow the opening of the negotiation chapters with Serbia, but that everyone was persuading Croatia that this was pointless.

The Croatian representative said that, in order to open Chapter 23, Serbia had to abolish the regional jurisdiction of Serbian courts in war crimes cases and to reserve seats for the Croatian minority in the Parliament.

The majority of EU countries maintain that these were bilateral issues which had not been set as the conditions for the opening of negotiations, and that they should be solved parallel with the negotiation process. They said that the opening of these chapters would also encourage the settlement of the disputed bilateral issues.

During the debate on May 4, some EU members showed a certain degree of understanding for Croatia's stands, but were still in favor of the opening of Chapter 23 in the negotiations with Serbia by the end of June.

The head of the team for the EU membership negotiations, Tanja Miscevic, stated in a comment of Croatia's refusal to agree with the opening of Chapter 23 in Serbia's negotiations with the EU, that Serbia should wait and see the further steps of the EU member countries regarding this issue.

"We are still waiting for Croatia to declare its opinion... actually, it declared no opinion today (May 4) and there is still time, because a few more months remain until the end of the Dutch presidency, which has clearly declared that it wanted Chapter 23 to be opened during its presidency," Miscevic told BETA.

(Beta, 04.05.2016)