CROATIA'S INTERNATIONAL FIASCO

AIM Zagreb, May 14, 1996

After it had for months, especially at the time of autumn elections, driven the opposition to despair with its judgements which had all been to its disadvantage, the Constitutional Court of Croatia, exactly like last summer, made a surprising, almost shocking exception. Last year it exempted the independent Split weekly Feral Tribune from the "pornography tax", due to which at the time Franjo Tudjman sheltered by the walls of his Presidential Palace stormed at the President of the Court, Jadranko Crnic: "Do you know who you have decided to protect", and now, the Court has taken one step further.

It reached a favourable decision concerning the constitutional complaint of Zdravko Tomac, Chairman of the Assembly of the city of Zagreb, who demanded that the decision of the Croat Government on dissolution of the Assembly dominated by the opposition be nullified. In fact, the Court did not question the right of the Government to dissolve the Assembly when necessary legal requirements were met, especially because the several-months long crisis in Zagreb is caused by refusal of the ruling Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) to cede the right to constitute the executive authorities to the majority in the City Assembly, but instead led to the rotten stalemate position which is impossible to resolve in any other way but by repeating the elections (although without guarantees that the HDZ will after all give up the rule in the capital). Crnic's tribunal just reacted to the inadequately interpreted Government decision which considered that untimely adoption of the city budget was sufficient reason for dissolution of the Assembly, which was then rejected by the Court.

The opposition had no confidence in the Constitutional Court that it would have the courage to react to this notorious legal tangle, and at first decided not to proceed with the constitutional complaint. After additional consultations in the Association of Seven Parties which had won the autumn elections in Zagreb, the complaint was logded after all. But, this sudden change of opinion was later interpreted by a part of the opposition and among analysist in the media as foul play which the Constitutional Court and Tudjman himself, and perhaps even Tomac played a part in. This all took place while expecting news from Brussels where fifteen foreign ministers of the European Union were reaching the informal but decisive decision about reception of Croatia in the Council of Europe. Concerning this, things became so complicated that soon it became clear that, for the first time, despite the favourable opinion of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Croatia would not, after all, cross the threshold of the oldest European integration. The ministers decided that this should be postponed at least until after the elections in Mostar, if not until the completion of the entire Dayton peace process, and there were opinions that Croatia could be accepted only as the first in a row which would include B&H and FR Yugoslavia.

Nevertheless, none of these reasons could have tipped the balance of the Parliamentary decision from Strassbourg, had there been no news from Croatia which kept arriving one after the other and which were simply tempting EU ministers to veto the decision of the Assembly. The already mentioned dissolution of the Zagreb Assembly drew their attention the most, since it occurred despite Tudjman's having taken the obligation, among 21 conditions set by the Council of Europe, that he would resolve the crisis in accordance with democratic standards of this European association. There are opinions that Tudjman believed nullification of the decision on dissolution of Zagreb Assembly by the Constitutional Court would be the least harmful at the moment, since it practically did not affect the course the Zagreb crisis had taken. Indeed, it could not affect the basic dispute about constituting of the executive authorities in Zagreb, and the HDZ was given the opportunity, this time pursuant the decision of the Constitutional Court, to further postpone new elections which, due to the fall of its popularity, it has all reason to fear.

But, as bad news about another postponement of reception of Croatia soon afterwards arrived from Brussels, it became clear that perhaps for the first time Tudjman made a complete blunder. So far his tactics had always been to accept all international obligations put in front of him on paper, and then to avoid them by various procedural and legal schemes or simply to ignore them. Now it was heard that EU ministers had convened a special session of the Ministerial Council in order to prevent Tudjman's "slipping through the fingers" - firm deadlines would be set for fulfillment of all obligations Croatia had assumed. The ministers obviously had in mind that, after Tudjman had agreed to the 21 conditions, several open fouls committed by the Croat authorities followed, starting from the dubious tax for services rendered imposed on Novi list from Rijeka, ban of publishing of weekly Panorama, questioning and charges raised against two journalists of Feral Tribune, public demonization of the President of the Croat Helsinki Committee Ivan Zvonimir Cicak, beating up of the lawyer Slobodan Budak in public, etc.

The Croat authorities immediately afterwards tried to sweep under the carpet a part of what has been listed, and temporarily exempted Novi list from paying the tax (until decision concerning the lodged complaint of the journal), Panorama was restarted, Feral Tribune received some kind of a sheepish apology from the Ministry of the interior (but the charges which had been raised with the agreement of Tudjman himself, were not dropped). However, this hasty cleaning up could not remove everything, and possibly some things occurred that the authorities could not predict or that slipped out of hand (the mentioned decision of the Constitutional Court was, according to some reached, without Tudjman's blessing, autonomously, which might mean that the Court used the attention of the world focused on Croatia as a shield and nullified the decision of the Government). In any case, Tudjman's "beauty parlor" did not succeed in concealing all the blemishes as it had been expected to do, and although reception of Croatia was just postponed and not rejected as before, this is certainly one of the greatest failures of Croatia's foreign policy lately. It could initiate a series of developments in the country, although it is not easy to predict what direction they could take.

The main dilemma is who will be reinforced and who weakened by the latest rejection of Croatia in Strasbourg. If distribution of forces on the political scene of Croatia had had an opposition which would have sincerely and persistently advocated its becoming part of Europe, as opposed to the Euro-phobic authorities, the latest developments would have certainly reinforced the opposition. One could have even proved that Tudjman's authorities were not only uncapable of leading the country to Europe, but that they were the main obstacle for it. But, since the opposition itself is also undecided whether by joining Europe Croatia would lose and how much of its national sovereignty and identity, such an outcome is hardly or not likely at all. It is more likely that the ruling HDZ will do its best to prove with all its available propagandist means, and partly succeed in doing it, that an injustice was done to Croatia. Therefore, there should be no regrets, moreover, it should be proved that Croatia can find friends elsewhere.

The very same day the bad piece of news arrived from Brussels, Chairman of the Assembly, Vlatko Pavletic, submitted an application for Croatia's membership in the Assembly of countries of the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization. Although hardly anyone in public has ever heard that such an assembly existed, the message addressed to Strassbourg is obviously that Croatia will completely check its ambitions to join Europe and rely entirely on an "air alliance" with the USA. Zagreb has already shown an intention to use controversies between Europe and the USA as its trump card, although so vehemently and tactlessly - Europe was procaimed incompetent to protect vital interests of Croatia - that this could also be an explanation for the latest rejection by the most powerful European association.

The worst thing is that this flirtation with the USA has also brought disappointment in the past few days. When Mate Granic flew across the Atlantic to participate in the work of the Forum for B&H, he was welcomed with the same criticism as those coming from Brussels. Instead of the expected foreign-political triumph, it is hard to remember a moment when Croat diplomacy had been in a more difficult situation.

MARINKO CULIC