Will Hercegovina ever be part of Croatia

[Aljosa]

Any Ideas on this-

Its a simple question, no ethnic cleasing stories please

[cronautic dot com]

i hope not. it is not in the interest of croatia to annex hercegovina.
regarding croatia's geographical position and its relative economic strengh, bosnia will be bound to croatia much closer than to any other neighbouring country. therefore why break it up, if we can have close confederationlike relationship with all of it. this would be in favour for both countries.

if croatia took hercegovina, serbs would annex their rs, this would make life for both, croatia and the remaining bosnia much harder. a serbian wedge so deep in sourrounded croatian territory would become problematic, even with normalized relations. just think of the new border crossings, when trying to travel from dubrovnik to vukovar.

[Aljosa]

I suppose you are right. It would be good to see a map to know what part of BiH the serbs are entitled to

[cronautic dot com]

the yellow area is serbian while the orange area is muslim/croat federation...you see what i mean?

[Rupert443]

leaving bosnia hercegovina as it is would be the best option.
if hercegovina was attached to croatia, croatia will posses a large muslim minority, and it would seem(geographically) as if serbia is 'digging into croatia'. (RS)

[Aljosa]

ProBosnian,

Surely the serbs will get to the North and South Irrespective if Herc joins Croatia. They breed like rabbits and soon enough they will occupy most of the regions either way.

[Aljosa]

"brave serbian warriors" Brave I am not so sure maybe suicidal. They have nothing to loose


As far as the situation I think it would be similar to the one in Kosovo if not 10 * worse.

I am not a fan of war but would like to see anything to have the serbs at their weekest and lowest population numbers

[Aljosa]

Yeah lets hope they do, or this time they might loose another chunk of land

[Aljosa]

Its in Croates interest to get as much of B&H as possible the more control we have the more say we have.

I think by leaving it as it is will give the serbs a greater advantage in thlong run as to how much control they will have unless us the croates start mass producing.

[PROWestern]

Not just in Croates interest, seems to me.

[Indira]

Guest-Aljosa said:

Its in Croates interest to get as much of B&H as possible the more control we have the more say we have.

I think by leaving it as it is will give the serbs a greater advantage in thlong run as to how much control they will have unless us the croates start mass producing.

Aljosa....are you from Hercegovina....hmmm..let me guess ,must be Zapadni Mostar

[pacificstar]

Maybe you all can help me understand what is happening in Croatia. I read here that there are alot of Muslims in Croatia. It seems the Croatian's I know are mainly Catholic. What is the prominate Religion in Croatia? I've traveled to Ireland a few times from the States and thye are now part of the EU. I've read here people are wondering if Croatia should be apart of it as well. Has Croatia joined the EU? To me it seems like it was a really good thing for the people of Ireland to join. All of their roads, museums, castles and churches are being restored and the people have work. Wha are all of your thoughts?

[Aljosa]

Indira,

I am from Ploce in Croatia. Where are you from?

[Mac]

Pacifistar,

Ireland was one of the first to apply to join in 1961 (suceeding in 1973). It was not just a matter of luck or presumed advantages that would befall the country but a matter of urgency. As an Island without obvious advantages Ireland had to do something to put it midly and by tying ourselves to Europe we got in very early on trade agreements etc. Thus, the great economic boom (Celtic Tiger) we experienced only recently came quite a while later and after a serious overhaul of just about every industry, trade, and service at our disposal.

Not so sure about the fact everything is being given a face lift. I think this is a bit too far although it would be nice to think it was true. There are still many parts of the country where even basic amenties are seriously lacking. Even certain parts of Dublin (where you certainly would not have had the pleasure of visiting!) have high rise flats in direlict conditions, crime is rampant, broken down cars liter the roads and so forth.

Don't mean to bite you on this subject, just telling it like it is

[Mac]

Ivy,

"but with the current level of globalization and technology accompanying it Croatia can achieve what Ireland did even without formal membership......"

that seems a very naive statement. Considering the state of Croatia and unemployment etc companies would simply not decide to set up in Croatia just because it was about time to do so. Ireland has a few of the worlds techno companies in her back yard now but you would not believe the political and economical willpower needed to encourage them in the first place. The incentives poured into these firms are so huge it would make every small business and budding entrepeneur sick with envy. In saying that sometimes it has to be done to attract even more people there. The next big problem is the expertise. The firms must spend money and a lot of time training their future employees.

Trade agreements are absolutely crucial to a country and if you have someone like croatia who decided to stand alone it would eventually suffer. Take Switzerland, they are not EU but lets face it they are right bang in the middle of Europe. And there's the little tax incentives So, EU membership is definitely the way ahead in my opinion.