Croatia greenlighted to join EU

Wow.

I was also wondering about that, but I guess people are entitled to their opinions.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia are some of the best countries in the world do live in in terms of quality of life and the state of their democracy and so on; somewhere between (say) Bulgaria ans Sweden, basically.

I thought there were official policies about racism and so on?

I'm not sure if that post was racist. It indicated a distaste for a country, but this is usually due to something to do with the government or environment or something like that, rather than the entire population.

I mean, if someone said "I hate the US," I would probably thump it because it's flame-y, but depending on the context, the post would probably mean to say "I hate the social policies (or lack thereof of) the US" or something like that.

edited 23rd Jan '12 11:45:17 PM by BestOf

Hmm. So the country whose recognition by Germany started the whole mess of the wars in Former Yugoslavia gets to be in the big boys club? I can't really articulate what I feel about this. Apart from a creeping sense of wrongness.

I am German and I kinda agree. Though the wrongness was not their declaration of independence - I'm all for the right of national self-determination. Rather that they than denied the very same right to the Krajina Serbs and later ethnically cleansed them. Croatia should not have been let into the EU without paying reparations for that, letting the people come back, and give autonomy to the region.

The EU isn't a "big boys' club." Furthermore, what matters is the status (economical, social etc) of the country applying to join, not its history except where relevant to the present.

(So any issues with current population should be dealt with prior to membership.)

edited 24th Jan '12 3:09:56 AM by BestOf

But it is a current issue in that by current EU criteria and laws the Krajina Serbs would have a right to return, to compensation and to cultural autonomy.

edited 24th Jan '12 3:15:00 AM by Octo

I meant to include that in my edit.

I've seen it, but I'm not quite sure what you mean by it in regards to Croatia...

Yeah, the words "current population" do make it ambiguous...

What I mean is, stuff like that should be resolved (to the benefit of the wronged party) before the country is accepted as a member.

So the people they evicted should be let back if they wanna return and regions seeking autonomy should get it if they pass a referendum on it.

These things can also be resolved after a country joins the EU, but using the membership as a reward for doing things right would be a much better idea than letting countries in first and then telling them to behave.

Ah, yes. I agree, and that is indeed the flipside of what I've been saying: That ideally a country should not let be in until such things are settled.

Plus, it would have made some political sense to let Croatia and Serbia join together.

Yeah, except (Serbia is holding itself back by being a dick about Kosovo) / (The EU is being a bitch by making Serbia pretend it's cool about Kosovo.)

Hmm. So the country whose recognition by Germany started the whole mess of the wars in Former Yugoslavia gets to be in the big boys club? I can't really articulate what I feel about this. Apart from a creeping sense of wrongness

You mean the declared it's independence from Serbian dominance?

That seems like a very simplified way of looking at history with an all too clear black/white schema.

And of the edge of it all, is Israel.

They're quite close (diplomatically) to the EU.

Israel is not in Europe, has massive human right problems, and good lord, do we really want to get involved in that mess?

Israel is decades from us even considering letting them in. They would have to go a long way towards democracy to match Turkey.

Like a well-functioning Government. It's amazing (even to the Israelis) that their Government actually functions — after all, a Government can fall with a 2% swing in the vote...

Not only Israel does have Proportional Representation, you know. Besides, it's the better system anyway ;)

With a tiny threshold — get 2% of the vote and you're into the Unicameral Knesset...#

Anyway, back to the advertised Topic.

I think he means the ethnic cleansing of Serbs and other non-fascists during WWII.

Yeah, Israel is (hopefully) a VERY long way of from joining.

It's good to see that the benefits of Union membership are good enough that countries like Turkey with serious human rights problems clean up the mess to try and join.

I have to say that's sort of irrelveant seeing Germany and Italy are members of the EU.

But, I don't think we should be holding grudges against any of the Yugoslavian countries. It's unfair to the average citizen.

I hope we could stop holding grudges against people whose parents weren't born when the crimes for which they're looked down on were committed.

This, of course, is a problem that the entire EU (as well as the rest of Europe) suffer from.