ABSTRACT
The accession of Croatia to the European Union represents the sixth round of EU enlargement 1 and is the first EU enlargement to include a single country since Greece joined the European Union in 1981. The final phase of Croatian accession negotiations coincided with a major economic crisis in the EU 2 and a general atmosphere of enlargement fatigue. The aim of this chapter is to examine specific problems that influenced Croatia's road to EU membership and have slowed down the negotiations process. These peculiar difficulties set Croatia somewhat apart from other ex-communist countries that became EU members in 2004 and 2007. The analysis of obstacles met by Croatia on its way to EU membership builds on Wolfgang Merkel's concept of embedded and defective democracies (see Merkel, 2004). This chapter seeks to test Merkel's ideas about factors that lead to democratic deficiencies, which, in turn, account for slower democratic consolidation and impeded EU accession. The research framework of this chapter places emphasis on key accession negotiation documents as primary empirical sources that detect structural problems pertaining to the delayed democratic consolidation in Croatia. In addition, the chapter aims to show how the process of EU accession influenced democratic consolidation in Croatia. The highlighting of democratic consolidation as a prerequisite for successful EU accession is not a result of chance, but builds upon a body of literature (e.g. Lavenex and Schimmelfennig, 2011; Schimmelfennig and Scholtz, 2010; Jano, 2009; Alexander, 2008; Zielonka, 2007; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2005; Vachudova, 2005; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2004) that draws a clear parallel between Europeanization and democratization. In this context, Europeanization means a steady increase in the importance and influence of EU institutions, regulations and policy recommendations, while democratization stands for steady development of democratic institutions and procedures, as well as an increase in democratic value orientations among party members and the electorate. 3
