madam president i should like to welcome commissioner füle and the minister
everybody will be pleased by the progress that croatia is making in the completion of its accession process
key areas of governance must be adapted to the requirements of the and some of these changes let us be clear about this are likely to go against the grain of tradition and expectations
so negotiating the transformation demands a major act of political will
let me add that the effort is well worthwhile especially for a relatively small state like croatia or for that matter and the same applies for the other states of the western balkans
eu membership i think we can take this for granted provides a set of advantages in political economic cultural and security terms
the greatest problem of adaptation though lies elsewhere
it is one thing to change the structures of governance but it is a very different matter to change the attitudes of society to something radically different to the forms and content that have been developed in the european union
the two are frequently far from each other and there will certainly be elements in society some quite powerful ones at that which will see only disadvantages for themselves in the new dispensation
let there be no illusions about this
the croatian authorities have not only to complete their negotiations with the european union but at the same time they must also do what they can to change social attitudes
that may turn out to be the harder task
