Flags

Statesmen who visit Zagreb and are being driven from the airport to the center always take the Ulica hrvatske bratske zajednice, the Croatian Brotherhood Society Street or something. Croats have a talent for abbreviating lengthy names of streets and squares, but unfortunately there seems to be no alternative for Ulica hrvatke bratske zajednice. Any suggestions?
Traditionally, at the end (or beginning) of Ulica hrvatske bratske zajednice the flag of the visiting country's guest is hoisted. So it was when Chinese president Hu Jintao came to Zagreb, and so it was for someone from some country. By the moon I could tell the visitor represents an Islamic country, but which? After bit of googling I found the answer: Turkmenistan. The always informative website of the Croatian government provides pictures for media use, so I felt free to show Sanader and the gentleman from Turkmenistan shaking hands.
I bet we will read later that Turkmenistan supports Croatia's bid for EU membership. It's good to have some friends left. This article from Jutarnji list paints a gloomy picture of Croatia's international position. The essence: EU diplomats recommend Sanader not to blame Slovenia for everything but to finally get some serious work done (the over and over again mentioned corruption, crime, Tribunal, state run firms, violent and racist football fans...).
Traditional allies like Germany, Austria, Italy, Luxembourg and Slovakia (new to me) have turned their back on Croatia or pay lip service at best. Croatia is a country without friends.

Air space

When Chinese president Hu Jintao left Croatia, his presidential plane was escorted by two Croatian fighter jets. These two jets seems to have violated Slovenian air space. Hardly surprising, I thought. You almost need a helicopter to take off from Zagreb airport if you don't want to enter Slovenian air space, as Zagreb is very close to the Slovenian border.
Some Slovenes are very angry about the violation. I am not going to dwell on it, as I have no idea how normal or exceptional such violations are. I just want to show you the language that was used by a Slovenian member of European Parliament. It is exemplary of the sour relations between Croatia and Slovenia.
"The theatrical incursion into our airspace that Croatia permitted itself, by abusing the military escort of a Chinese protocol state aircraft, is an abuse of that state and, at the same time, a display of arrogance that cannot be practice either in the EU or NATO," said Jelko Kacin.
I don't think Croatia will enter the EU in 2011, even if Slovenia lifted the blockade right now. I suspect the Sanader government uses the blockade to turn attention away from other pressing problems in Croatia: corruption, organized crime and lack of cooperation with the Yugoslavia Tribunal in The Hague. The EU, meanwhile, has given up on trying to find a solution for the border conflict, after its numerous proposals were blocked by either Zagreb or Ljubljana.
Sanader uses big words in complaining about the Slovenian attitude. He said that if the EU negotiations with Croatia fail, also the idea of Europe (that is: uniting nations) fails. I can understand Sanader's frustration over Slovenia, but his words show a chronic overestimation of Croatia's importance to the Europe. Even if Croatia never joins the EU, the EU is and will be a uniquely successful project. (Although I sincerely hope Croatia will join the EU). Secondly, Croatia's entry into the EU hinges upon many more things, as I mentioned above. As soon as Slovenia lifts it unfair blockade these things will come to the fore once again.

Old Europe, New Europe

Train travelers in the Balkans are used to waiting at borders. Officials check your passport and ask: "Nešto za prijaviti?". Something to declare? No one ever declares anything, last of all the Croatian women who smuggle cheap textile from Italy to Zagreb.
When Slovenia joined the Schengen area I expected the endless waiting to be over. But no. Villa Opicina, at the Slovenian-Italian border is one of those notorious places where you stare out of the window and think: "Are we really in the EU?" After an hour or so the train finally starts moving to Venice.
I had to think of this as I read an article in Die Tageszeitung, published on Presseurope. Presseurope translates articles from several European newspapers into the main EU languages. Something like the International Herald Tribune, but than online and very limited in scope.
The fall of the Iron Curtain should have united two towns, but Italian Gorizia and Slovenia's Nova Gorica continue to snub one another with great distinction. While Nova enjoys an economic boom, old Gorizia tearily remembers the rare old times.
The enormous car park is almost completely deserted. It has enough space for hundreds of cars, but only a few stray vehicles are parked under the pale light of the street lamps. And save a handful of guests at the nearby pizzeria, there isn’t a soul in sight.
A cab? The waiter frowns as though he’d been asked an utterly absurd question. “After eight you can’t get a taxi anywhere in Gorizia.” Gorizia has called it a day...
We'll consider the phrase Iron Curtain a slip of the tongue.

8.000 dead men and a few logs

Serge Brammertz is probably the best know Belgian in Croatia. As the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia he is a key judge on Croatia's progress towards EU membership. Brammertz is often bracketed together with "artillery logs", or "topnički dnevnici" in Croatian. The Tribunal thinks to find evidence of excessive shelling of Knin (the Serbian stronghold and "capital" of the so called Republic of Serbian Krajina). The Croatian army led by Ante Gotovina, who's spending his time in The Hague waiting for evidence against him, conquered Knin in 1995 as part of Operation Storm. Croats regard this as a tremendous military success, but the international community (a nickname for the powerful) suspects the army of having committed war crimes against the Serbian population of Knin. The logs Brammertz is looking for did never exist, were stolen or disappeared - each side sticks to its own version. More about the logs here and here.
What annoys Croats in particular is the tough stance of The Netherlands on this issue. The Dutch consider Croatia's cooperation with the Tribunal insufficient. I have heard several prominent Croats say the Dutch attitude is related with Srebrenica. "Dutch soldiers stood idle when 8.000 Muslim men from Srebrenica were murdered and now they are blocking our EU accession over a few artillery logs," a commentator sneered earlier this week.

Croatian parties and European elections

Political parties in Europe are warming up for the European elections in June. Using EU Profiler you can inform yourself about parties and their stances on several issues. Croats are not eligible to vote, but they can nevertheless use EU Profiler to find out what Croatian parties think of many (European) issues.
I answered 30 questions and got to know where I stand in the Croatian political landscape. Quite interesting, as electronic tools like EU Profiler are a novelty in Croatia.
I did not know terribly much about the European profile of Croatian political parties, so the score above is an honest, non-biased reflection of my choices. As an uncompromising free market and free trade liberal I am a bit surprised by the this left-leaning outcome (IDS and SDP). I suspect my strong anti-clerical attitude is responsible for that. You can, by the way, juxtapose your answers and the opinions of the political parties.

From ally to enemy: Slovenia (2)

The dispute between Croatia and Slovenia over the Bay of Piran is not been solved yet. On the contrary, the relationship between the former Yugoslav republics worsens by the day. About a month ago Slovenia blocked Croatia's advancement towards EU-membership and Slovenia hasn't budged yet. Slovenian prime minister Borut Pahor said yesterday that his country will not yield to pressure from Zagreb or Brussels.
Croatian president Mesić responded in a way that is not untypical for him. He said that if there had not been Croatian partisans the Slovenes would be looking at the sea from a twenty kilometer distance, referring to the fact that Croatian partisans liberated Istria and the Slovenian coast. Out of 60.000 soldiers of the Fourth Yugoslav Army, almost 40.000 were Croats.
Slovenian politicians were, of course, not amused with Mesić's remark. "Scandalous", is the general political opinion. One historian said that it is regrettable that Mesić destroyed the Slovenian and Croatian brotherhood that existed during the war.
That brotherhood is long gone. Almost half of the Slovenes would now vote against Croatian EU-membership in a referendum. Slovenia threatens to organize a referendum if the border issue is not resolved to its satisfaction.
The satirical show Laku noć, Hrvatska (Good night, Croatia) mocked Mesić and the partisans in one of its sketches. We see how Mesić finds a strategy to kill Italians after Tito's complaint that the partisans didn't shoot a single Italian yet. If I heard it well, Mesić says that Italians are as naive as Albanians, using the derogatory term "Shiptar" but then changes the word into "šiperica" - a flapper. But I am not quite sure about that, so help from a native speaker is appreciated.

Boycott of Slovenian products

I read in the newspapers that Croats on the internet call for a boycott of Slovenian products to revenge for the Slovenian blockade of Croatia's negotiations with the European Union. I didn't know at first where on "the internet" the boycott is being promoted. Papers here are not very strong in listing their sources.
After a bit of searching I found the Facebook community "BOJKOT Slovenskih proizvoda", which has almost 19.000 members. There is a website too.
No need to say that I did not join the Facebook community. Boycotts are not only stupid and ineffective, but also show that some Croats can't make a distinction between Slovenian politicians on the one hand and Slovenian manufacturers that make better products than Croats on the other hand. I bet almost all 19.000 "BOJKOT Slovenskih proizvoda" members wash their dirty laundry with a Gorenje washing machine and fix a meal on a Gorenje cookers.
Croatian prime minister Sanader said that a boycott is unacceptable and added generously that Croatia will not behave towards Serbia as Slovenia does towards Croatia. Political analist Davor Gjenero observed wittily that Milošević was the first to boycott Slovenian products and "we know how that ended".

From ally to enemy: Slovenia

Once upon a time Slovenes and Croats said they lived in a country that stretched "od Triglava do Vardara", from the Triglav mountain in the extreme north-west of Slovenia to the Vardar river in south-eastern Macedonia. Close to the Macedonian town of Gevgelija, or Đevđelija, the Vardar crosses the Greek border to empty into the Aegean Sea, not far from Thessaloniki. Therefore, also the variant "od Triglava do Đevđelije" was popular among the partisans who created Yugoslavia on the ruins of World War II.
It's easy to forget how large a county the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was. With its area of 255,804 square kilometers it was bigger than the United Kingdom or Romania. Austria fitted almost three times into it and only eight American states are bigger. Today, Serbia without Kosovo is smaller than Austria, and Ireland outsizes Croatia.
Slovenia and Croatia were the two leading republics in the break-up of Yugoslavia. Both felt exploited and dominated by Belgrade and declared independence on the same day, 25 June 1991. What followed is history and so is their close cooperation from those days. Now safely in the EU, Slovenia seems to have turned into Croatia's main external obstacle to a quick entry into the Union. As you can read everywhere Slovenia blocked the opening and closing of some chapters of Croatia's accession negations.
It's not the first time that the Slovenes anger Croats. Last year Slovenia introduced a vignette for its highways and motorways. As the vignette is available for either six or twelve months, many Croats feel injured for several reasons. First, going to Ljubljana for shopping or just refueling (Slovenia has lower fuel prices than Croatia) became more expensive. Second, many Croats suspect that Slovenia intentionally delays building highways in order to isolate Croatia from the rest of Europe. Looking at the map of Slovenian roads, that suspicion is maybe not without justification. As an impartial observer I can safely say that the speed of highway construction in Slovenia is staggeringly slow. Third, most tourists come to Croatia by car, passing through Slovenia. They need to pay a relative large sum to use a little stretch of highway.
And now Slovenia blocked Croatia's progress towards EU membership. It accuses Croatia of using certain documents in the negotiations that claim an unfair share of the Adriatic Sea close to the Slovenian town of Piran. One look at the map below and it is clear why the Bay of Piran is crucial to Slovenia. Without it, Slovenia doesn't have access to international waters.
Croats used to make fun of Slovenia's coast and sea (read more here) which they find hugely inferior to their majestic coast. I don't think they laugh any more. Of course, the Slovenian veto against Croatia is petty-minded, but so is, if you ask me, Croatia's reluctance to grant Slovenia the Bay of Piran. Croatian coastal beauty is in another league anyway, with of without that bay.