Zagreb, 14 October 2008 - 2009 Progress Report for Croatia, which European Commission published as part of its Enlargement Package on 14 October, in its overall tone and content much resembles to the last year’s one. Commission reckons that Croatia has achieved some or substantial progress in most of the negotiation areas but at the same time warns that most of the crucial problems outlined in previous reports still remains.

Until October 2009 Croatia has opened 28 and provisionally closed 12 out of total 35 negotiation chapters. Due to the border dispute with Slovenia, which was holding accession negotiations at halt from November 2008 until October this year, it is not possible to achieve timeline proposed by Commission last year and conclude negotiations by the end of 2009, but reports states that they could be closed during 2010, provided Croatia meets all necessary conditions.

However, Commission also clearly states that problem with Slovenia was not the only reason for negotiations not progressing in line with the proposed roadmap, referring particularly to the opening of chapters on the judiciary and fundamental rights and competition which have not progressed as planned. Moreover, the list of areas in which progress was unsatisfactory is basically the same as in last year’s report, including reform of the judiciary and public administration, corruption and organised crime, minority rights including return of the refugees, war crime trials and cooperation with the ICTY.

The reform of public administration, which is one of key areas of accession process, is still not receiving adequate political attention, the main problem being inefficiency, lack of professionalism and politicisation. Although report acknowledges some efforts in the reform of judiciary system, they have so far been mostly in the form of adopted documents which still need to be tested in practice. Levels of independence and professionalism of the judiciary are still far from satisfactory, with wide area of political influence still existing.

Situation is something better in the field of fight against corruption and organised crime, with most important progress seen in the fact that Office for Combating Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) has increased its activity and finally started to investigate high-level cases (one of them including a former minister) while first verdicts in some cases brought up by USKOK have been issued. However, corruption remains widely present, number of prosecutions remains low and the culture of political accountability for the corruption is still lacking.

Although Commission accesses that Croatia has coped with the global crisis relatively well, it can be thanked more to the monetary measures of the Croatian Central Bank than to the Government response, which is described as late and with doubtful impact on the competitiveness of the economy. Although macroeconomic stability has been preserved and strategic planning of economic policy slightly improved, many decisions in this field of are still being made ad-hoc and Government’s economic policy often lacks a clear mid-term orientation. Business environment experienced limited improvements while the labour market is still suffering from structural problems and mismatch between offer and demand.

Regarding workers’ and trade union rights, report states that ability of trade unions to influence on Government’s policies and decision making process has improved, which is not the opinion shared by Croatian trade unions, which are highly disaffected with the content of Government’s antirecession measures as well as with the process of their formulation and adoption. The same can be said about rating the social dialogue in general, although report calls it “relatively well developed”.

There has still been no progress in the amending the Labour Law, although the process was planned to be finished by autumn last year, says the report.