Germany wants to see Croatia as a member of the European Union, but Zagreb first needs to meet the membership requirements, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in Luxembourg on Monday before a meeting of EU foreign ministers.
What has been agreed upon is still valid and I am certain that the agreement between the European Union and Croatia will be implemented step by step. It is well known that we want Croatia as a member of the EU, that has already been decided, but the relevant criteria need to be fulfilled. There will be no artificial barriers for Croatia, but there will be no concessions either. We will seriously carry out, point by point, what was agreed between the EU and Croatia, Westerwelle told reporters when asked about the position of his government on the ratification of Croatia's EU accession treaty by the German parliament.
Croatian Foreign and European Affairs Minister Vesna Pusic, who was attending the meeting as an observer, discussed the ratification with Westerwelle on Sunday evening following controversial statements from Germany about the continuation of the EU enlargement process and Croatia's readiness for EU membership.
The Speaker of the Bundestag, Norbert Lammert, has called for a halt to the EU enlargement process, including the planned accession of Croatia. "Because of our experience with Bulgaria and Romania, we must take the European Commission's latest progress report seriously. Croatia obviously is not yet ready for entry," Lammert, a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said in an interview with Die Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
On the other hand, the German government has expressed its conviction that Croatia will meet the necessary criteria in time for accession, scheduled for July 1, 2013.
