Croatia / Hrvatska
The EU signed an Accession Treaty with Croatia on December 9, 2011, and Croatian voters approved with a 66 percent majority Croatia’s accession to the EU on January 22, 
Croatia / Hrvatska
The EU signed an Accession Treaty with Croatia on December 9, 2011, and Croatian voters approved with a 66 percent majority Croatia’s accession to the EU on January 22, 2012. Croatia is slated to formally enter the EU on July 1, 2013, as long as the parliaments of the current 27 EU member states ratify Croatia’s Accession Treaty by then. EU accession negotiations provided an additional impetus for the Croatian Government to undertake measures in recent years to address corruption and bureaucratic and judicial inefficiency.
Croatia is about the size of West Virginia, but its geography divides it into two distinct markets -- the more affluent and tourism-oriented Dalmatian costal region along the beautiful Adriatic Sea, and the rural inland Slavonian region, dominated by agricultural and industrial activities. The country’s population of roughly 4.5 million is largely homogenous in religion, language and ethnicity [most of the country's Serbs fled in 1995 at the end of the Homeland War]. In the summer months its numbers are doubled by tourists from throughout Europe and the world, making it a cosmopolitan market for products and services.
The Croats are believed to be a Slavic people who migrated from Ukraine and settled in present-day Croatia during the 6th century. Croatia is situated between central and eastern Europe. Its terrain is diverse, containing rocky coastlines, densely wooded mountains, plains, lakes, and rolling hills. Croatia serves as a gateway to eastern Europe. It lies along the east coast of the Adriatic Sea and shares a border with Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, and Slovenia. The republic has a distinct boomerang shape, arching from the Pannonian Plains of Slavonia between the Sava, Drava, and Danube Rivers, across hilly, central Croatia to the Istrian Peninsula, then south through Dalmatia along the rugged Adriatic coast. Croatia is made up of 20 counties plus the city of Zagreb and controls 1,185 islands in the Adriatic Sea, 67 of which are inhabited.
Croatia was one of the six republics constituting Yugoslavia until 1991 when the country declared independence. The parliamentary elections in May 1990 became a cornerstone of Croatia’s future status in Yugoslavia. The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) led by Franjo Tudjman gained a clear majority in the legislature. The party had grown into a broad-based political movement whose main plank was the achievement of national sovereignty. Tudjman was elected Croatian President and he appointed Stipe Mesic as the first non-communist Prime Minister. Croatia held a referendum for independence on 18 May 1990, which showed that 93 percent of the population favored Croatia’s statehood.
The separation of Croatia proved problematic for Belgrade, which supported political and military insurrection of Serbs in Krajina. Gradually, Croatia was dragged into a Serbian-Croatian conflict at the republican level, which escalated after the Serbian National Council in Knin declared the independence of Krajina from Croatia. At the end of June 1991, Croatia declared its independence and “disassociation” from Yugoslavia.
Initially, the Yugoslav People’s Army (YPA) focused its attention on crushing the Slovenian rebellion, but it also moved troops and equipment to saturate Croatia. The YPA aimed either to ensure that Zagreb remained in a centralized Yugoslavia controlled by Belgrade, or to carve away about a third of Croatia’s territory and establish a “Greater Serbia” stretching to the Adriatic coast. Failing this, Serbia would be dependent on Montenegro for access to the Adriatic.
Croatia found itself in a full-scale war, which ended in 1995 with the exodus of 250,000 Serbs from Krajina after the Croatian army retook the area from the Serbian paramilitary forces. The war left a legacy of war crimes committed by both sides, thousands of displaced Muslims, Croats and Serbs, and 20,000 dead.
In December 1995, President Tudjman joined President Milosevic and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic in the signing of the Dayton peace accord, which ended the war in Bosnia. President Tudjman came out from the war a victor and a national hero, despite his alleged complicity in the war crimes committed by Croatian paramilitaries in Bosnia. Tudjman exploited Croatia’s post-war insecurities, and his image as the savior of the nation, to establish a quasi-authoritarian regime. He 