Accession Conference with Croatia Cancelled

The Czech EU presidency has decided to cancel the intergovernmental accession conference with Croatia planned for June 26. The reason is the ongoing territorial dispute with Slovenia.

The accession negotiations with Croatia will remain blocked for an indefinite period of time. “This is a bilateral dispute, says the future Swedish presidency. “Responsibility for solving bilateral disputes rests with the countries themselves”.

While this is true, an important question is whether the bilateral disputes may effectively prevent future enlargement. There is more: “maintaining the credibility of integration prospects is very important, otherwise security in the Balkans could be severely undermined”, says Roland Berzani.