Jew World Order

Opinion polls predict a “Yes” vote of up to 60 per cent on Sunday,
paving the way for Croatia to become the first of the ex-combatants from the
Balkans wars of the 1990s to join the Euro-club. That fact alone is a matter
of satisfaction to some, pleased that their immediate neighbour and former
enemy Serbia has yet to be officially accepted even as an official candidate
for EU membership. Montenegro, Macedonia and Iceland are ahead of Serbia in
the queue.

However, while the poll is being seen by Brussels as a much-needed vote of
confidence in the EU’s long-term viability, not everyone is in the mood for
singing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, the official European Union anthem that has
accompanied the referendum campaign.

One concern among Croatia’s 4.5 million people is that after two decades of
rebuilding their war-shattered economy, they will inevitably get sucked into
the eurozone’s financial problems, possibly having to help bail out southern
neighbours like Italy or Greece.

But fears about handing over hard-earned cash are accompanied by fears about
surrendering hard-earned freedom. The independence they have enjoyed since
fighting their separatist war from the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s is
their first in nearly 1,000 years, during which time they have been
variously threatened by the Ottomans, ruled by the Habsburgs, and run as a
puppet state by the Nazis.

To some, the ever-more centralised European superstate as just another
encroaching empire.

“I don’t want to go into Europe,” said Ivana Kasum, 28, who works in
Zagreb’s famous Croata tie shop, a garment that Croatia claims to have
brought to the rest of the world in the 17th century. “Living standards
are bad enough here already, and they would only get worse. We came out of
Yugoslavia to be independent, and it is stupid to go straight into a union
of some other kind.”

Nestling between the fertile plains of the Danube and the scenic,
island-speckled coast of the Adriatic, Croatia has long seen itself as more
Western-looking than its Balkan neighbours, and more victim than perpetrator
in the Yugoslav civil war.

Since formally applying to join the EU in 2005, it has passed thousands of
laws, by-laws and reforms to satisfy EU bureaucrats that it is fit for
membership, and has also reluctantly handed over two former generals to the
Hague war crimes tribunal, despite them being seen at home as heroes who
merely defended Croat turf.

Yet thanks to the EU’s current woes, many are now asking if they should
cancel, or at least postpone, what was seen as a dream goal at the end of
that war. Blessed with beaches, lakes, and forests that are a magnet to
tourists, and an abundance of prime farmland, they wonder if Croatia could
not be like Switzerland or Norway, enjoying trade benefits with the EU
without the commitments of full membership.

No, insists Croatia’s political class, which has little time for such
arguments. The EU bid has the support of both the ruling Social Democrat
Party and opposition Croatian Union of Democrats, who lost power last month
after their prime minister, Ivo Sanader, went on trial on corruption
charges. A “No” vote now, they argue, would not just keep Croatia
in a post-Yugoslav political wilderness, but deprive it of €1.6 billion in
EU funding over the next three years alone, as well as vast new markets for
Croatian firms.

“It’s true, when we started negotiating for membership, Europe seemed to
us like marrying a beautiful girl with a large dowry, and now perceptions
are completely different,” admits Tonino Picula, a foreign minister
during a previous SDP stint in power. “Eurocritics say it is possible
to be happy outside the EU, but the fact is we are not really like
Switzerland or Norway. Membership of the EU is the best possible life
insurance for a small country today, and if we expect help from the EU
ourselves, it is only fair that we should help out other nations in times of
problems.”

Andrej Plenkovic, secretary of state for European affairs with the outgoing
government, adds that the earliest Croatia would join the eurozone itself
would be 2016, which gives “ample” time to sort things out. “There
is no immediate fear that we would have to contribute to the bail-out.”

Critics, though, say the cross-party consensus has meant little real scrutiny
of the issues in the run-up to the vote, despite around 30 per cent of the
public being against membership with 10 per cent as yet undecided. The EU “information
centre” in Zagreb, for example, touts little more than propaganda
videos showing grateful citizens from newly-joined EU countries saying how
much they are “loving it”. A 2010 booklet titled “A Snapshot
of EU Achievements”, meanwhile, makes the somewhat bold claim that “rapid
EU action preserved the stability and credibility of the euro”.

Instead, the lone parliamentary voice questioning the EU accession is that of
Ruza Tomasic, a 53-year-old ex-policewoman who spent her early career in
Canada before returning to Croatia in 1990, helping guard President Franjo
Tudjman from assassination plots during the war years. She is used to
speaking her mind – she received death threats from the Croatian mafia after
helping get a heroin dealer jailed on Korcula, the picturesque island on
Croatia’s Dalmatian coast where she lives, and to this day still keeps a
pistol for protection.

“We fear Croatia will get sucked into the eurozone crisis, and end up
having to help other countries that we are actually poorer than,” she
told The Sunday Telegraph over tea flavoured with lemons from her garden.

“I am not against joining the EU as such, but my problem is that there
hasn’t been any real debate about it here, and many people don’t really know
what they are getting into.

“Our leaders have just rolled over because they want to be part of this
big club that will give them lots of extra funds. We should at least
postpone until we know whether the eurozone is going to fall apart.”

As things stand, however, Mrs Tomasic remains a minority voice, cheerfully
dismissed by the likes of Mr Plenkovic, who says that with “two hours
argument, I think I could change her mind”.

Yet if Croatia does decide in favour of becoming the EU’s 28th nation on
Sunday, there will be many who do so not so much for love – as the EU
propaganda videos might claim – as for money.

A short drive down the pine-tree lined road from Mrs Tomasic’s house is the
Karlovacko café, which has a large portrait of Croat general Ante
Gotovina, currently serving 24 years in the Hague for alleged war crimes.
When the EU, led by Britain, made his capture a condition for accession
talks to begin in 2005, many Croats said they would prefer to remain
outside. In these hard times, though, some of those locals who still regard
him as a heroji are having to be pragmatic.

“I’d be against joining the European Union, really, but I’m in the hotel
business, so the more tourists we get, the better,” said Zarko Pecotic,
stirring a coffee on the café’s veranda. “I can’t afford to object.”