| On the other side of the
Adriatic Sea there is state full of problems with which, however, we must
find an agreement and that may offer our enterprises big opportunities |
Among the Eastern European states
knocking on the European Union's doors, one is currently being the object
of particular discussions: Pres. Franjo Tudjman's Croatia. Among all the
countries of the former Yugoslavia, Croatia is the most stable one from
a political standpoint: it has a hegemonic party (the Croatian Democratic
Union, or HDZ) that wins all the elections, controls the nerve centres
of the power and extends its tentacles also on an economy where public
presence is still prevailing. Croatia, however, also has some sort of democratic
deficit that pushed the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) to brand last June's elections as “free but not correct”, the United
States to freeze a 30-million dollar credit line in Zagreb and the setting
up of a strong lobby in Strasbourg resolved to suspend Croatia from the
Council of Europe.
The international community
is reproaching the seventy-year-old president and master for little respecting
the minorities (including the Italian one, at least until the recent treaty),
for a semi-totalitarian control of the mass media, for electoral laws that
do not meet the criteria in force in western democracies, for the repeated
violations of human rights and for an economic system widely controlled
by an oligarchy having a close connection with the majority party's top
officials.
Croatia's role in the war
of former Yugoslavia is a very vexed question, too: attacked by Serbia
when, following a popular referendum, it proclaimed its independence, at
the beginning it lost large parts of its territories but, after holding
the enemy's offensive in check, later managed to re-conquer all the
provinces it had lost thanks to the military aid it secretly obtained
both from Germany and the United States. Tudjman's behaviour in Bosnia
was and continues to be ambiguous.
He is formally allied with
Izetbegovic's government, but never stops hoping to share the country out
with Serbia thus annexing Herzegovina, chiefly peopled by Croats, that
he always supported politically. However, at least for the moment, Tudjman
is respecting the Dayton Accords and hopes that, after the truce
becomes a real peace, his Croatia may stop being discriminated and can
at least begin the procedure leading to obtain the European Union's membership.
Croatia's troubled history
probably contributed to foster the currently prevailing chauvinist trends,
and its National Socialist obsession lies at the bottom of the problems
that Croatia continually has with the other neighbouring countries. Despite
living together for eighty years, having an almost common language and
countless mixed marriages, the Serbs are still considered as enemies. The
reciprocal massacres during World War II, where hundreds of thousands
of people died, were followed by a new series of atrocities - made of murders,
rapes and ethnical cleansing - in the past seven years. The Serbs
occupied eastern Slavonia, razed Vukovar and Osijek to the ground and forced
the Croat minority to leave; three years later the Croats answered with
equal fierceness by driving the Serbs out of Krajina.
As time went by, a relationship
between Zagreb and Belgrade was re-established, but it will take a very
long time before the new wounds heal. The return to a federalist structure,
furthermore, is currently inconceivable.
The need to repel the Serb
attacks convinced Croatia to make some sort of marriage of convenience
with Bosnia (the so-called Croat-Muslim Federation) although it resulted
to be extremely precarious. One of the safest ways to conquer the Croats'
approval consists in praising their role as the “Christian bulwark” that
should prevent Islamic fundamentalism from spreading from Sarajevo throughout
Europe.
Things are not going well
even with Slovenia that tried not be involved in the Yugoslavian chaos
any more as from 1991 by underscoring its European vocation and setting
the “border of the Balkans” on the Dragogna. Zagreb is reproaching Ljubljana
chiefly for openly trying to hamper its route towards Europe, delaying
the building of two motorways that should connect it with Austria and Italy
and which should allow it to get out of its relative isolation.
Other two controversies
add to this clash: one concerns the possession of a strip of land in Istria
and another the delimitation of territorial waters in the Gulf of Trieste,
as well as a large number of other issues that turned the two countries'
borders into real barriers and the whole Slovenia into an “impediment to
be avoided” in the race towards the EU.
The relationships with Italy,
on the other hand, are getting better although many questions remain unsolved
and the issue of the Istrian autonomy may soon herald new problems. When
Croatia reached independence, it hurriedly proclaimed itself the heir of
the Osimo's treaty but, for many years, it did not ratify the part protecting
30,000 citizens of Italian origin that are still living in Istria, Quarnaro
and Dalmatia.
During Berlusconi's government,
Rome asked, although received no satisfactory answers, that all goods confiscated
by Tito's regime to the exiles of 1947 should be given back.
Tudjman reacted by personally
and repeatedly attacking, even with insulting words, the alleged “Italian
imperialism” and accused Trieste's revanchist circles of supporting the
autonomy claims of the Istrian Dieta, HDZ's major rival, that triumphed
in all the electoral referendums of the peninsula. Lately, however, Zagreb
probably became aware of the fact that, from a European perspective, an
anti-Italian policy would have had a harmful effect, and that Croatia in
general and Dalmatia in particular needed to establish an economic co-operation
with Rome.
Thus, after much hesitation,
Zagreb gave up the claim of recognising a phantom Croat minority in the
north-east (that actually exists but cannot be considered as native) and
agreed to sign a treaty on the protection of minorities that is rather
acceptable. Whether the Croats will respect it still remains to be
seen.
The interest of Italy -
now Croatia's first trading partner, after recently overcoming Germany
- to establish a strong relationship with its eastern neighbour is absolutely
evident. To make it stronger, both Pres. Scalfaro and Pres. Prodi recently
took some steps. Despite being small (56,000 square kilometres, less than
one fifth the size of Italy), not much densely populated (4 million and
800,000 inhabitants) with a per capita income of some eight million lira,
Croatia has a considerable power strength and may provide prospective investors
with cheap skilled manpower.
The industries in the north-east,
always looking for new markets, showed their interest and would be much
more active if safer laws and a reliable legal and economical scenario
existed. A country where a self-managed Socialism ruled for 45 years and
war raged for five now needs everything and Italians, from Friuli down
to Abruzzi, are in the ideal situation to supply it. It should not be forgotten,
in fact, that because of Croatia's particular shape and the precarious
conditions of its railroads and road network after the war, it is far more
easier to reach Ancona or Pescara from Split or Ragusa by ferry-boat than
reaching Zagreb or Slavonsky Brod.
The best opportunities for
the Italian entrepreneurs are exactly located along the Adriatic coast,
so rich of Roman and Venetian monuments and still imbued with Italian culture.
A huge tourist paradise, with a wonderful sea, incredible islands and charming
towns whose facilities, however, mostly go back to the Socialist period,
stretches from Umago up in the north down to the Montenegrin border in
the south. When Croatia will be forced to open towards to the external
world in order to enter Europe, there will be much to do here. And even
if there are no Italians having some common sense who believe they will
be given back the eastern provinces lost fifty years ago, there is no doubt
that Italy's greater economical and cultural presence will end up removing
Zagreb's chauvinism from them and turn them into some sort of buffer area
between Latin Europe and Slavic Europe.
Croatia's “western option”
is becoming increasingly evident as months go by. A look at the headlines
in Croatia Weekly, the newspaper that Zagreb publishes for foreigners,
would be enough to make people clearly understand this point. Here are
some taken from the last issues' front pages: “Croatia will soon ask to
enter the European Union”; “Croatia interested in obtaining NATO bases”;
“Croatia intends to participate in the Euro-Atlantic integration” and,
last but not least, “Where do the Balkans begin?” (with a scholarly essay
showing that Croatia is not part of them).
It is not just a matter
of words. To show people that it is behaving seriously, Zagreb anchored
its new currency, the kuna, to the mark, and is currently refusing
to devalue even if the economical situation would require it. To
fight inflation, now in compliance with Maastricht's standards, the government
is currently adopting a monetary policy that is so strict that it is choking
even the economy, and does not even get upset when it has to face the increasingly
frequent social upheavals triggered by unemployed and underemployed people.
The future, however, is
jeopardised by a major unknown factor: Pres. Tudjman's tenure who, with
all his defects, is ensuring stability inside and the respect of the Dayton
Accords outside.
Two years ago he got cancer
and the world-wide press gave up all hope for him. But the American physicians
managed to cure him and a month ago, in front of the Congress of the HDZ,
he made an almost three-hour impromptu speech without showing any signs
of weakness.
Should he resign, a fight
between the ultra-nationalist wing headed by the Minister of Defence Susak
(who, by no accident, is from Herzegovina) and the pro-Europeanism one
headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Granic would certainly trigger
off inside the HDZ. Its result would probably determine whether the Balkans'
border will be set on the Dragogna, as the Slovenes say, or on the Sava,
as most of the Croats wish.  |
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