TEPSA Policy Paper “Croatia’s First Year of EU Membership : Have the Expectations been Fulfilled?” by Visnja Samardzija
The first anniversary of Croatia’s membership in the European Union revealed the experiences of the first country from a new wave of EU enlargement which joined the Union in economically different circumstances and passed through a more demanding negotiation process. In contrast to the EU 2004/2007 enlargements, Croatia acceded to the EU as a single country and the accession did not cause stronger impact on the EU institutions or policies, due to the fact that Croatia is a small state with some 4.3 million citizens and some 56,600 square km land area.[1] One year of the EU membership is too short period for a thorough evaluation of its impacts. Still this initial experience could be considered as a lessons learned for the political elites, citizens and the countries of the Western Balkan region who might be next in line for EU accession. These are the main issues covered by this paper.
The Policy Paper is available for download here.
Column “The European Parliament, the winner takes it all”, by Prof. Jaap de Zwaan, TEPSA Secretary General
W
e have witnessed an interesting institutional struggle between Member States and the European Parliament about the designation of the personality to become the new Commission President. According to the innovation brought by the Lisbon Treaty the European Council should take into account the results of the European elections once proposing a candidate for President of the Commission.
As to the question how to apply this innovation, the Parliament developed long before the elections of last May a strategy. The idea was to designate candidates of each political grouping, the understanding being that the group who would end in the European elections as ‘biggest’ would be entitled to deliver the Commission’s new president. When it became clear that the Christian Democrats came out of the elections as biggest group, the Parliament presented former Prime Minister and former Euro Group Chairman Jean Claude Juncker as their candidate for the Commission’s Presidency.
Now, by not reacting to this strategy and in any case by not contesting the appropriateness of the approach of the European Parliament, Member States in fact lost on beforehand the possibility to object against these suggestions after the elections. Indeed we have seen initiatives of individual and groups of heads of state and government who objected against Jean Claude Juncker. However, all these objections were in vain. Cameron even went so far as linking a possible nomination of Juncker to a withdrawal of his country from the European Union. How far one can fall, and what a weighing of national interests in the British capital ……… !
Anyhow, the European Council who met on 26 and 27 June has accepted Juncker as their candidate. The decision was taken by qualified majority since unanimity was not required. A hot discussion about the further composition of the group is still to come.
In conclusion, the European Parliament has operated cleverly. In the end the Parliament has not only appointed the new Commission President but also selected the person concerned.
Picture : © europarl.europa.eu
