Opposition wins Croatia presidency

[Lars77]

Source: Al Jazeera

Opposition candidate Ivo Josipovic has won Croatia's presidential elections, upsetting the capital's popular mayor.

Josipovic, who heads the Social Democrat party won 60.29 per cent of the vote compared with 39.71 per cent for Milan Bandic, the mayor of Zagreb, with 99.6 per cent of the vote counted, the state-run electoral commission said on Monday.

Comparing his election to a "victorious symphony," Josipovic said "every citizen who aims for a better, more just Croatia has won".

Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/01/20101111235938177.html

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Croatia elects a social democrat in a landslide. Josipovic is a law professor and composer.

[pampango]

1. From the Financial Times: Josipovic eyes swift EU accession for Croatia

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/27c78702-fec1-11de-91d7-00144feab49a.html

"Ivo Josipovic, Croatia’s president-elect, on Monday said he looked forward to taking the former Yugoslav republic of nearly 4.5m people into the European Union.

The 52-year-old law professor and composer – nominated by the centre-left Social Democrats, Croatia’s largest opposition party – received 60.3 per cent of votes cast, with turnout just above 50 per cent, according to election commissioners."

"Mr Josipovic promised to work with the centre-right government to complete EU accession talks in six months. He would be a “good counsellor” to the prime minister, Jadranka Kosor, and “contribute to quicker accession”, he said.

Some of the toughest conditions in the negotiation process, which began four years ago, remain to be met: reforming the judiciary; selling off state-owned shipyards; and fighting rampant corruption. Croatia aims to become the bloc’s 28th member state by early 2012."
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Sounds like both candidates and the out-going president all want Croatia to join the EU. I can understand why Croatians want to belong to the EU, but it will be interesting to see if the current EU wants to absorb another relatively poor ($16,500 per capita - about 1/3 of the level of the current members) country into the union.

[Lars77]

3. The EU will always look to expand

The EU always wants to expand to poorer countries, because it will provide a flow of cheap labour so that we here in the richer countries will able able to sustain our lifestyle as cheaply as possible.

[pampango]

4. Must be good for the people in the poorer countries too. They have to make major changes to qualify

for EU membership and yet they are willing to do it. If the poorer countries want to join and the richer countries allow them in (after they meet certain criteria), it sounds like a win-win. If the people in the rich countries thought they would be better off without their poorer neighbors, they wouldn't let them join. And if the poorer Europeans didn't want to jump through hoops just to join, they would tell the EU to forget it and go about their own business.

[Lars77]

5. It does increase the living standard of poorer countries..

but on the whole, the EU is slowly growing into a behemoth of beurocracy, and with thousands of faceless, unaccountable beurocrats. It's a bonanza for lobbyists etc, not to mention private companies who are getting access to new markets, i'm especially worried about utilities.

Where's it going to end? When is the expansion complete?

[Odin2005]

2. Congratulations, Croatia!!!