Saturday 3 December 2011

Croatia to join EU

With the €uro on the brink of collapse, Greece defaulting on its debt repayments, the third largest economy in the €urozone (Italy) seeing its credit rating downgraded and the second largest €urozone economy (France) at risk of losing its AAA rating, the EU has had a eureka moment.

Our masters over the Channel have decided that the best way to stave off the collapse of the single currency and save their beloved EU superstate is to admit Croatia into the EU, complete with the obligatory membership of the €uro.  You couldn't make it up.

Interestingly, for an eastern European country that two decades ago was enslaved within the regressive communist union of Yugoslavia, Croatia is actually in quite a good state financially compared to the rest of the €urozone.  National debt is a mere 58% of GDP which is less than half of that of Greece at 144.9% of GDP or Italy at 118.1% and Croatia ranks higher than several EU countries in the GDP world rankings.  All this will change if the €uro survives long enough for them to join it of course but they can't say they weren't warned.  Not that many people in Croatia would have seen or heard the warnings though, a prize for finding a eurosceptic article in the almost entirely state-controlled Croatian media remains unclaimed.