BRATISLAVA, February 17, (WEBNOVINY) – President Ivan Gasparovic ratified entry of Croatia into the European Union on Friday. Once the ratification process is completed with the accession treaty being approved by all EU members, Croatia will become the bloc’s 28th member on July 1, 2013. After Slovenia, Croatia will be the second state of former Yugoslavia to enter the EU and first country of the Western Balkans to do so.
Croatia filed for membership in 2003 with the European Commission recognizing it as an official candidate in the following year. Negotiations on all access chapters were completed in June 2011, the country signed accession protocols in December. Two thirds of participating Croats voted in favor of the accession in January 2012 referendum.
When the accession treaty was discussed in Slovak parliament, Foreign Minister Mikulas Dzurinda emphasized the job Slovak diplomacy did in order to help Croatia become a EU member. In the time when the country asked for membership, Dzurinda was Slovak prime minister and lobbied for launching the accession talks together with Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel. “We were convinced that it’s a country able of fulfilling the conditions, a country, which simply belongs to Europe,” underlined Dzurinda earlier in February.
SITA