EU - long wait!!!

[gmh]

I know all too well about the court system here.
I'm involved in a case that is now in it's 4th year, and we're on to our second judge after the first 1 left for a position in the justice department half way through.
It's the type of case that never would have made it to court in Australia, or would be dealt with at night court in America in under an hour I'm sure.

I guess lawyers and translators need to make a living and the courts are sympathetic to them.

If I'm found guilty, I get stuck with a whopping bill for the court costs !!!!!!!!!!!!

[mambo]

The changes is just window dressing, that is all. When you get down to the basics, the foundation, you will find out that nothing has changed.

It reminds me a bit of working for the government. All of a sudden we had the 'product responsible management style'.
Lots of new posters with mission statements, targets and goals, but in reality..........nothing changed. Everybody just smiled at the posters and continued doing what they had been doing for the last 50 years.

Croatia is identical. They talk a lot, they dress it up a bit, but in the end it is still the same old mess.

[happy]

New car
New suit
New man

New man in new suit
New man in new suit driving new car

but same old, same old, same old, same old mentality

[Madgolfer]

Its like changing the direction of an oil tanker.....it takes time.

I know we would all like "everything" to happen overnight, but get real guys.

[BrankoL]

Slovenia stopped blocking Croatia

www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE69D1GK20101014

[Madgolfer]

Sort of thing we are discussing on this post;

"The Zagreb County Court on Friday sentenced former Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Damir Polancec to 15 months in prison pending appeal for paying Vukovar attorney Petar Miletic half a million kuna of budget funds for an unnecessary expert study."

Full article here;
daily.tportal.hr/91444/Polancec-sentenced-to-15-months-in-prison-pending-appeal.html

The first of many high profile cases, being pushed through in record time.

Just the sort of thing the EU are looking for!

[mambo]

@ madgolfer,

For now I regard this guy as 'the fall guy' since none of the real high players have been taken into custody.
The major of Zagreb is still walking in town as a free person, while basically everyone in Zagreb knows that he is a copy of the major of Moscow. Without paying him nothing gets done in Zagreb.
Everybody knows and everybody looks the other direction.
The corruption of Sanader is calculated at a staggering 2 billion euro, but he is still walking around, no warrant for his arrest.
All over Croatia there are still many many many officials who take money on a daily basis and nothing happens.

So, despite you hope and enthusiasm..........it is still only window dressing. Offer a few scape goats and the rest walks free.
Like I said before, expecting a system, corrupt to the core, to change itself is like asking the moon to hit the earth.............it just won't happen.

If they really would go after all the corrupt politicians Croatia would be without city councils, without parliament, without government, without inspectors, without teachers, without policemen, without a few judges, without a few lawyers, notaries etc...........they would all sit in jail.

[Madgolfer]

@ mambo

Lets see what happens over the course of the next few months.

[3lions]

what like, all court cases which have dragged on over say 3 years for no apparent reason whatsover, are to now be decided on?

[Madgolfer]

Well that would be a start.

I was thinking about a few more high profile cases reaching the courts followed by equaly swift justice.

If we start seeing some of the big boys going down.......its a start.

[3lions]

well I would prefer change to come from the bottom up, but that hasn't happened, and the trouble with change just happening at the top is that how do we know that one corrupt deputy PM isn't just going to be changed for another corrupt deputy PM? Still I guess it will get slowly better over the years, as each official realises that they just have to be slightly more honest or efficient than the one before them.

[miki2502989]

well i am praying for the day we finally join EU.it is not because EU is so great,but that croatia government sucks and is totally bad,and maybe when we join it will be better.it can't be worse

[mambo]

It can be much worse................they will start plundering the EU subsidies and since Croatia will also have to contribute to the EU (percentage of GDP) it will mean less money for the people.

[ray51]

Just look at the Hungarian/Bulgarian/Roumanian recent scandals , and everyone can easily see , what comes with the territory , EU or not !
None of the above countries appear to have benefitted much from the EU-membership , nor has there been much improvement for the masses .
So , what exactly is the difference if the ruling elites ( "elected" by ill-informed sheep ) cheat , plunder and steal , outside the EU , or inside ?
How should the EU-membership change the mentality ?
Doesn't appear to have worked in Greece , either ( after all those years ) , nor in Portugal , nor in Lithuania ...so : why should it work any different in HR ?

[3lions]

My opinion is that if these countries are in the EU they will start to open up their ways of thinking on various policies. There are no other forces of change in these countries. Who would care or go to Bulgaria if it was not in the EU? Who would care about Croatia if it was not on the road to integration, other than those who want to sit on the beach and eat cevapcici? You are talking about countries that have never been open to outside change for at least 50 years.