Croatia is set to become the 28th member state of the
European Union on 1 July 2013.
Croatia applied
for EU membership in 2003 and the European Commission recommended making it an
official candidate in early 2004. Candidate country status was granted to
Croatia by the European Council in mid-2004. The entry negotiations, while
originally set for March 2005, began in October that year together with the
screening process. The accession process of Croatia was complicated by the
insistence of Slovenia, an EU member state, that the two countries' border
issues be dealt with prior to Croatia's accession to the EU.
Croatia finished
accession negotiations on 30 June 2011[2] and on 9 December 2011 signed the
Treaty of Accession to become the bloc's 28th member. The ratification process,
by the parliaments of all 27 EU member states, is expected to be concluded by
the end of June 2013. Therefore, entry into force and accession of Croatia to
the EU is expected to take place on 1 July 2013.
A referendum on EU accession was held in Croatia on 22
January 2012, with 66 percent of participants voting in favour of joining the
Union.
Croatian public opinion has been generally supportive of
the EU accession process. Spikes in Euro-scepticism have occasionally happened,
for example in April 2011 due to the association of the Hague tribunal with the
EU.
Croatia has had to contend with long-standing border
issues with Slovenia. Good trade relations have precluded this up to December
2008 when Slovenia's blockade of Croatia's EU accession stalled the negotiating
process for 10 months.
In September 2009, it was announced Slovenia would remove
restraints on Croatia's negotiations with the EU without prejudice to the
international mediation on the border dispute. However, as of April 2010,
Slovenia was still blocking opening of Chapter 31 (Foreign, Security &
Defence Policy). As of June 2010, Slovenia has voted to accept the ruling of
international arbitrators on the dispute, removing this obstacle.
Croatia has border
disputes with Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Montenegro, but these
countries are not European Union members and cannot directly block the
accession process. In December 2008, Croatia and Montenegro agreed that the
outstanding sea border issue between the two countries should be settled before
an international court whose decision would be accepted in advance by the
parliaments of the two countries.
Assuming that nothing blocks the current expected path,
from 1st July 2013 you should treat Croatia as the 28th
member state of the European Union.
This means that customs clearances will no longer be
expected in both directions, customs paperwork requirements will reduce to
match the EU standard and this should speed up and simplify transit on both
dispatches (formerly exports) and arrivals (formerly imports).
Finance departments need to be warned to include Croatia
data on their VAT returns (boxes 8+9), EC Sales List reporting and Intrastat
reporting from July onwards.
Other current restricted practices for both import and
export activities should stop immediately, however as with some of the other
eastern member states some requirements may linger for a while
For full details nearer the time, please see Strong &
Herd DYK, articles, blogs etc or alternatively book yourself on one of our EC
training courses, where full details and updates will be provided.
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