Cock-a-doodle-doo – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatia: EU accession – “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings”

October 22, 2012 by inavukic 13 Comments

Nothing is irreversible until the final act is played out – says the proverb in the title of this post.

When it comes to Croatia becoming a member of the EU then that final act, in everyone’s mind, is the ratification of Croatia’s accession Treaty by the existing member states’ parliaments. So far the playing out of that final act has been going steady as about 15 out of the 27 states have sealed their part in it. 1 July 2013 is the deadline for this final act and its successful grand finale also depends on Croatia passing in the eyes of member states the big test of monitoring EU had imposed. Bar very few exceptions, words of praise to Croatia keep reeling in.

And then this world is suddenly shattered: “the fat lady to sing” may not be the ratification of the Treaty and Croatia’s performance in monitoring but something else entirely! She could well, all along, have been the EU’s push to equate the victims with the aggressor in Croatia’s War of Independence, which would not allow Croatia to become member of EU before Serbia!?

Certainly, a great deal of what has happened in “rushing” Serbia’s EU member candidate status (including eating the words that Serbia will need to recognise the independence of Kosovo before it can be considered as EU member candidate) points to political manipulation in which rules are made “as-you-go”.

Now, Croatia’s prime minister Zoran Milanovic, who says Croatia will definitely pass the EU monitoring test by 1 July 2013, comes out with statements that there’s rumours in diplomatic circles that Croatia’s accession to EU membership would be delayed to the end of 2013. These rumours were made public via media in Croatia as they surfaced on October 19^th – 3 days after Croatia’s president Ivo Josipovic and Serbia’s former president Boris Tadic received the EU Medal of Tolerance!

The unpalatable political puzzle of the EU gains more vivid pieces.

To put more fire into these rumours Milanovic comes out with a bizarre statement that Croatia would need to have a new referendum regarding membership in the EU. Reasons he’s feeding the public are that there’s a “new” EU on the drawing board – an EU which was not the subject of Croatia’s January 2012 EU referendum! Therefore, Milanovic says that people had not really voted in the referendum for the “new EU”!

Milanovic’s bizarre statement about some new referendum shocked the Croatian public, even if it is widely felt that he is battling for survival of his government.

President Ivo Josipovic is confused by it (?).

He rushed in and stated that “he did not understand Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic’s statement about a possible referendum on Croatia’s European Union membership, that Croatia had voted in favour of it”.

He added that “if an issue comes up, either domestic or foreign, it’s always possible for citizens to decide on it at a referendum in line with the constitution and law.”

The “new EU” Milanovic refers to relates to current plans for creating new banking and financial unions within the EU which have implications of member states’ sovereignty being compromised. Centralised control of, or interference with sovereignty from Brussels is certainly a fate most likely.

When Croatians voted in EU referendum in January many did not vote at all because of this fear, but Milanovic wouldn’t even acknowledge this fear. He was adamant that there’s nothing to be feared as far as Croatian sovereignty was concerned. His newly elected government (dubbed by the public as “the chicken coop” on basis of its given name KUKURIKU/Cock-a-doodle-doo and lots of noise with little results) went so far as to change the Constitution regarding majority votes at Referendums in order to secure a “Yes to EU” outcome. Indeed Milanovic’s government is under heavy criticsm by German parliamentarians for this very issue.

In the end, I do not want to be proven right with regards to the fear that EU will not let Croatia in before Serbia. Croatian people, Croatian War of Independence have not and do not deserve such undeserved harsh treatment and indignity. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Cock-a-doodle-doo, Croatia, EU, EU accession, it ain't over till the fat lady sings, Ivo Josipovic, Kukuriku, new EU, referendum, Serbia, Zoran Milanovic

Croatian government: suffering from Alice in Wonderland syndrome

June 13, 2012 by inavukic 5 Comments

A portrait, Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic (left); First bDeputy Prime Minister Radomir Cacic (Right) and Mihael Zmajlovic, new Croatian minister for environment (Middle)

The plot around the resignation of Croatian minister for environment and nature resources Mirela Holy has gathered diversity and steam that lead one to believe Croatia’s government is suffering from the Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AWS). When one suffers from AWS one’s perceptual reality is distorted; one doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not.

Croatia’s centre-left government is still (almost seven months after being elected) looking for its identity, hiding its failures and inabilities to deal with real problems in economy, behind some weird and bizarre shrubs or parading as “Mad Hatters” – stuck on stalling with real issues.

A couple of “Mad Hatters” are ex-minister Holy and first deputy prime minister Radomir Cacic.

Reading the Croatian press about the Holy affair – now dubbed Holygate – must be what Alice in Wonderland experienced when she first crawled through the rabbit hole. She entered a world of crazy where up is down and down is up and not much made sense unless you were flying high on magic mushrooms or crystal meth. Nothing wrong with a little crazy now and then until you reach the point where crazy becomes the norm.

Holy’s morally corrupt email goes public;

Holy resigns as minister and prime minister Zoran Milanovic accepts the resignation saying such behavior cannot be tolerated;
Milanovic publicizes his statement regarding Holy’s resignation from Emil Tedeschi (one of the leading Croatian tycoons) holiday luxury villa, far from the capital, thus diverting public attention away from critical current issues being addressed in the capital (negotiations with labour syndicates on workers rights that are being diminished at this time of 19.1% unemployment);
Minister of internal affairs Ranko Ostojic advises Holy to mount criminal charges against whoever leaked the email;
Holy says she was threatened by “garbage mafia”: “We will recycle you, throw you in a furnace and incinerate you”;
The letter with these threats has reportedly been handed to the police but the faces within this “garbage mafia” are faceless – perfectly fitting into Alice’s Wonderland;
Holy files charges with state prosecutor for breach of privacy against unknown person/s;
Holy suspects Cacic’s PR adviser Ankica Mamic is involved in email leaking (Mamic had coffee with Croatian television station HTV editor the day before he ran the email scandal as an exclusive);
Cacic, in the company of prime minister Zoran Milanovic, jumps with statement that Mamic was his longtime friend, his PR adviser and that he knew nothing of the email;
Cacic announces the Ombla and Plomin multibillion Euro projects will go ahead despite negative feasibility ecological studies (these projects are in the field of electricity generating plants);
One of the feasibility studies (done without costs to the government) that gave a negative assessment was done by Goran Mazija, an expert for geology, hydrogeology, ecology and protection of waters; Mazija is the husband of the woman for whose job Holy intervened with her morally corrupt email;
Daily t-portal blogger Zoran Sprajc (demoted HTV news anchor who had been linked to the disgraceful doctoring of phone conversations about Vukovar that prime minister Milanovic had forced Holy to resign as minister and yet he supports Cacic who continues to make hollow promises of a better future and new investments that will improve the state of the economy.
June 12, Cacic says: “Whenever something is free of charge (referring to feasibility study), I find it very suspicious. There cannot be ‘a green study’, free of charge, for an HRK 900 million, it indicates that either nothing is well done or someone’s interest is at stake.” The president of Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and Leader of Opposition Tomislav Karamarko, said June 12 that “the case was now entering the phase of scheming, when it is trying to be established who read emails and why. By doing so, (the government) is trying to avoid addressing the merit of the problem, namely the issue of jockeying for positions”, adding that “this was the main characteristic of this government”.

I totally agree with Karamarko, and as Lewis Carroll (the author of Alice in Wonderland) would understand only too well: “Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with, and then the different branches of arithmetic — Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision,” (The Mock Turtle, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) is what the Cock-a-doodle-doo (Kukuriku) Social Democrat led Croatian government is doing. It thinks that it has led the Croatian public though the rabbit hole where in the land of wonder Holy’s corruption isn’t important, perhaps because there’s so much of it that a single case becomes invisible, hard and professional volunteers’ (“free of charge”) work (so often depended on in many areas of life in the civilised world) is only for idiots, while projects intended for the boosting of the ailing economy end up as fodder for a Mad Tea Party.

The Cock-a-doodle-doo government should climb out of the rabbit hole and deal with reality of corruption, unemployment and struggling economy without distorting it with fairytales. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps.(Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Alice in Wonderland, Ankica Mamic, Cock-a-doodle-doo, Croatia, Croatian Democratic Union, Emil Tedeschi, HDZ, Kukuriku, Lewis Carroll, Mihaelo Zmajlovic, Mirela Holy, Radomir Cacic, Ranko Ostojic, Social Democratic Party, Tomislav Karamarko, Zoran Milanovic, Zoran Sprajc

The Queen Hath Spoken: control immigration from Croatia, don’t come asking UK for money to help save struggling EU nations

May 10, 2012 by inavukic 9 Comments

Wednesday 9 May, Queen Elizabeth II gave her speech in the UK parliament, setting out the government’s legislative plans for the next year.

The Queen hath spoken, but she didn’t give much detail away as the announced Bills are still in draft stages and haven’t been published yet.

While there’s a long list of Bills referred to in the Queen’s speech (particularly in the area of tackling Britain’s ailing economy) the ones that draw my attention here are the “European Union (Approval of Treaty Amendment Decision) Bill” and the “Croatia Accession Bill”.

The first Bill seeks to end the UK euro bailout exposure. The Bill basically seeks to approve the creation of the European Stability Mechanism, a permanent means to support Eurozone countries in trouble, but exempts the UK from a new European bailout agreement between Eurozone countries.

The Croatia Accession Bill is about Parliamentary approval for Croatia to join the EU and allows for immigration to the UK from the new member to be controlled.

The Croatia Accession Bill seems set to crush much of the enthusiasm of young Croatians who voted “Yes” in December 2011 at Croatian accession to EU referendum, convinced that doors of the whole of European Union will be opened for them to seek and obtain employment, residency etc. with ease. Not that there would be a stampede of young intellectuals and professionals, or workers in general, out of Croatia after July 2013, when Croatia is expected to become a full EU member, but at least the relative freedom of movement for livelihood purposes was/is expected.

While it’s not yet clear what the “control of immigration” into UK from Croatia really means, as the full text of the Bill is not yet published, there’s an annoying feeling tingling in the air that “euroenthusiasts” in Croatia are in for a rude shock. They can thank the new Kukuriku (Cock-a-doodle-doo) coalition government for enticing them into the “Yes to EU” vote – for, employment opportunities in EU was one of the positive points the foreign minister Vesna Pusic had printed on the government’s referendum campaign brochures.

It has been clear for many years that the UK would like to reap the benefits from EU membership (e.g. ease of trade, ease of investments in EU countries, increasing its wealth though buying-up assets in EU countries, having a say in EU legislative process …), but not share too many responsibilities if things go wrong. Much hasn’t changed in the way the UK does business abroad since the days of its imperialistic and colonizing days of “glory”, it seems.

The Queen’s announcement of legislation to confirm Croatia’s accession the EU did not include the bill to commit the UK to give 0.7% of national income in overseas aid. It has been said that the UK government expects to meet this foreign aid target by next year, but has opted not to mandate itself to do it every year in law.

So it looks like UK is leading the way in the “every man for himself” battleground when times get tough. This may not be a bad approach to national survival, in fact it’s welcome in many respects but the problem is that it’s always the UK loud bells that ring – alarmingly and condemnably – when some other country’s leaders are pursuing nationalistic approaches to protecting their nation.

Croatia should learn from this and start seriously limiting the acquisition of Croatia’s assets by foreign countries, even by those that are members of the EU. All those in Croatia who had in the past twenty years been inclined to follow the hypocrisy in foreign powerful bells that labelled Franjo Tudjman a nationalist should now take pause and rethink their position for – Croatia First! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps.(Syd)