Review article
https://doi.org/10.32984/gapzh.10.1.18
The Beginnings of a “Long” or “Hard” Road of the Republic of Croatia Towards the European Union, 1990-1991: Legal and Historical Context
Budislav Vukas, ml.
; Faculty of Law, University of Rijeka
Tomislav Dagen
orcid.org/0000-0002-0652-2403
; The Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek
Abstract
The Republic of Croatia’s accession to full membership of the EU has been an extremely complex and specific process compared to most Central European and South-Eastern European countries. Compared to all the member states that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007, the Republic of Croatia has encountered numerous different challenges, hence the Croatia’s accession to the EU has often been described as a “long journey” (M. Staničić) or “hard journey – Steiniger Weg” (G. Sander, B. Vukas, Jr.), and the like. The accession of the Republic of Croatia to the Euro-Atlantic integrations and its return to the West European civilization was the goal of almost all newly formed political parties and intellectual circles in the 1990’s, including the new government of the Republic of Croatia appointed at the first session of the multiparty Parliament on May 30, 1990. The Yugoslav crisis, and the increasingly open Greater-Serbian aggression and the war against the Republic of Croatia determined to a large extent the relations between the Republic of Croatia and the EEC. Thus, their initial relations were primarily driven by the attempts of the EEC and other European organizations to mitigate the crisis, mediate in the first armed conflicts, and contribute to establishing peace in times of open aggression which threatened the survival of the state. The authors of this paper will attempt to show the origins of the relations between the Republic of Croatia and EEC based on legal sources of the EEC institutions, the provisions of European law and international law, especially after the proclamation of Croatian independence on October 8, 1991.The goal of this research is to present the role of the EEC in these very specific bilateral relations, and the importance of all these events for the creation of further relations, especially after the international recognition of the Republic of Croatia.
Keywords
EEC; mediation; diplomacy; international recognition
Hrčak ID:
223035
URI
Publication date:
18.7.2019.
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