Slovenians Vote Croatia Out of EU?
At least temporarily, if the latest news are to be believed.
Nova TV just broke, or, at least tried to break the news about right-wing triumph at today's Slovenian parliamentary elections. According to exit polls, Janez Janša's (Janez Jansa's) SDS has won 30 % of the vote, while Rop's centre-left LDS won only 23%. Problem is in Janša having to rely on smaller hard-line nationalist parties as his future coalition partners. That includes characters who are dead set against allowing Croatia to join EU before yielding to Slovenian territorial and other demands.
This doesn't bode well for Sanader whose unpopular policies were justified with the need to secure Croatian entry EU in 2007.
Slow but unstoppable deterioration of relations between Croatia and Slovenia could get much worse after today's vote. Slovenian threats to block Croatian entry into EU might create major backlash in Croatia and fuel equally menacing rise of Euroscepticism.
1 Comments:
You're right that the Croatian government should be concerned, especially since the man at the center of the border dispute will almost certainly join the ruling coalition.
However, I don't think things will necessarily end badly. You may have noticed how quickly Slovenia "softened" its position after its initial threat. (See: http://www.euobserver.com/?sid=9&aid=17401) The reason is that the EU is much more interested in having Croatia join than supporting Slovenia's regional ambitions. Even the BBC noted that the threat to stop Croatia's bid was "widely viewed as a pre-election gesture - something of an over-reaction which has not pleased Brussels." (source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3711266.stm)
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