ZAGREB, May 16, 2018 - During its presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2020, Croatia wants to organise a summit between the EU and the six Western Balkans countries to put the focus back on EU enlargement, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Marija Pejčinović Burić said on Wednesday.
EU leaders are meeting with the heads of the Western Balkan countries in Sofia on Thursday, which will be the first such meeting since the Thessaloniki summit in 2003. Enlargement has been put on the back burner because of the difficulties faced by the EU in recent years and there is still no appetite for admitting new members in the foreseeable future, but current EU president Bulgaria has decided to put the issue back on the agenda.
"Putting the focus back on Southeast Europe, on the six countries that are still not members of the European bloc, this is already a big step forward and Croatia advocates the same approach. We would like to organise Zagreb Summit 2 and we would like it to be an enlargement summit, to reinforce the message of putting the focus back on the countries in our neighbourhood," Pejčinović Burić said in an interview with Croatian Radio.
Eighteen years ago, the EU held a summit in Zagreb on the subject of enlargement, the first summit to be held outside its borders.
Pejčinović Burić said that enlargement was no longer an important issue in the EU given the current challenges faced by the bloc, but added that Croatia believed such summits should be held every two years as was the case with the Eastern Partnership. She said that the Sofia summit marked an important step forward because it would send a message that there were clear membership prospects for all six countries, including Kosovo, which is still not recognised by five EU members.
"It has been agreed that all six countries have membership prospects and their tasks have been clearly defined, to meet political and economic criteria. The focus will also be on reconciliation and efforts to resolve mutual issues," the Croatian minister said.
The preparation of the Sofia summit had met with a lot of difficulties because of Spain which refuses to attend because of the presence of Kosovo. Spain is one of the five EU members that do not recognise Kosovo, but unlike the other four countries – Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Slovakia – it does not want to sit at the table with representatives of Kosovo.
In order to accommodate Madrid, the Western Balkan countries are referred to as "partners" and their leaders are not identified by function but only by name. Despite these difficulties, Brussels considers it a success that a joint declaration has been agreed at all.
Pejčinović Burić noted that the path towards EU membership was having a transformational effect because these were transitional, mostly post-conflict countries. "It is important for them to transform into modern states with a functioning democracy, to complete the European project with their membership and certainly to contribute to security as the issue of all issues. Hardly can there be security in Europe unless these countries join the common project, because if the EU is not in, someone else will be," she said.
Pejčinović Burić announced that this Friday Croatia would take over from Denmark the six-month presidency of the Council of Europe, the oldest European political organisation. "After 22 years of membership, Croatia will for the first time preside over this large pan-European organisation. It is one of the many institutions that we have acceded to and that were important for the confirmation of our independence and our inclusion in the international system of multilateral organisations," the minister said.
The Council of Europe promotes democratic stability and human rights. None of the countries joined the European Union without first acceding to the Council of Europe. Croatia has ratified 93 conventions of the Council of Europe, the last being the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.
Pejčinović Burić said that the priorities of the Croatian presidency of the Council of Europe would be the fight against corruption, the effective protection of the rights of ethnic minorities and vulnerable groups, decentralisation in the context of strengthening local government, and conservation of cultural heritage. "Croatia has prepared a programme consisting of 26 events, most of which concern human rights protection, while ten will focus on culture," she said.
Sixteen events will be organised in Croatia, namely in Zagreb, Rijeka, Dubrovnik, Zadar, Brijuni and Istria. "In Strasbourg, the seat of the Council of Europe, we will present ten themes, ranging from architecture to music and film, and we have been granted permission by the city authorities to cover one tram with Croatian symbols," Pejčinović Burić said.
Commenting on the latest Council of Europe report on racism and intolerance, which brought attention to a rise in hate speech in public discourse in Croatia targeting minority and vulnerable groups, particularly Roma, Serbs and LGBT persons, Pejčinović Burić said that Croatia had made progress on this issue and had devised plans and a strategy to combat such phenomena, including action plans for education and employment of Roma. "In the area of human rights, you can never do enough," the minister concluded.
