The Cold War split Europe into two camps: a liberal, capitalist western half of the Continent and an authoritarian, communist eastern half. The violent dissolution of Yugoslavia, along with concomitant political and economic stagnation in Romania and Bulgaria, redivided the Continent in the 1990s between a stable, democratic Northern and Central Europe and a chaotic Balkans, the latter with Near Eastern-levels of underdevelopment. The accessions of Slovenia into the European Union in 2004, of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, and now of Croatia in the summer of 2013 seemingly help to unite Europe at last, but in reality hint at new, albeit more subtle, divisions.
First of all, the European Union's economic core has itself been undergoing serious divisions between a relatively healthy north (Scandinavia, Germany and the Low Countries) and a crisis-ridden south (Italy, Spain and Portugal) with almost Depression-levels of unemployment and staggering debt crises. Meanwhile, Greece in the extreme southeast of the eurozone is experiencing the equivalent of a Great Depression, even as France threatens to move in the direction of Southern European standards of economic agony.
Atop these divisions within the Eurozone itself are more divisions within the larger European Union. Romania and Bulgaria may be in the European Union, but they are not in the eurozone: nor, more crucially, are they parties to the Schengen treaty, which allows the citizens of more than two dozen European countries to cross each other's borders without passport and immigration controls. In other words, there are still divisions between these former communist Balkan countries and Central Europe, albeit less profound than during the 1990s.
Now let's look at Croatia. Croatia has become the newest member of the European Union, bringing the number of countries within the organization to 28. Some EU officials have hailed the latest expansion as a sign of continued European vitality. Hardly. Croatia merely becomes a new, sick member of Europe. It has more than 50 percent youth unemployment, helping to give it the third-highest unemployment rate within the European Union after Greece and Spain. It has been in recession for half a decade, with an economy smaller than it was five years ago. It will be neither in the eurozone nor a party to the Schengen Agreement in the foreseeable future.
As for its politics, Croatia has an unstable center-left coalition with an abysmal approval rating of 24 percent. One should add that Croatia is among the most corrupt states in Europe, riddled with organized crime and inefficient state companies difficult to privatize. With 4.4 million people, it will be a relatively minor problematic addition to the already-fragile alliance. The biggest practical effect of Croatia's accession will be -- on account of Croatia's relative poverty -- its access to EU development funds, constituting a further drain on Brussels.
Of course, the fact that Croatia will not be in the eurozone makes its stunningly beautiful Dalmatian Coast affordable to many tourists. So there is admittedly one bright spot. Another bright spot may be that with high unemployment and a relatively weak currency, Croatia may create opportunities for entrepreneurs from within the eurozone to relocate some manufacturing and other forms of business there. This is not to be underestimated.
Croatia has been trying to escape its Balkan geography by seeking to build an import terminal for liquefied natural gas in order to service its own energy needs and those of the region around it. Croatia is attempting to interest natural gas-rich Qatar (in the Persian Gulf) in the project. Under this plan, Qatar would help finance the terminal as a hub for its own energy exports to Central and southeastern Europe. But with Europe's continued economic downturn, and with Russia planning to use neighboring Hungary and other countries in the region as a hub for its own "South Stream" energy pipeline, it is uncertain how interested the Qataris are in the Croatian offer.
To be sure, Croatia's EU accession will move it politically and economically closer to Northern and Central Europe, but no closer perhaps than Romania and Bulgaria. The Balkans still constitute a distinct zone, albeit without the stark and violent divisions of the 1990s. What is more interesting, however, is to compare Croatia's new position in Europe with those of the other countries of the former Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia, during its more than seven decades of existence from the end of World War I to the end of the Cold War, was always a sprawling mass of contradictions that combined a First World, Habsburg Austrian-influenced north with a Third World, Ottoman Turkish-influenced south. Since the federation broke apart starting in 1991, the various constituent republics have fared more or less according to their geographical position and to their level of development during the Cold War.
Slovenia, the northernmost former Yugoslav republic with the deepest historical integration into the Habsburg Empire, joined the European Union almost a decade ago and is part of the eurozone. Nevertheless, while its level of economic and social development was always the highest in Yugoslavia, as part of the communist world, Slovenia was still far behind neighboring Austria and other Central European countries. Slovenia's recent banking crisis has to be seen at least partially in this context. It has arguably progressed too far, too fast in recent years. Croatia, just to the south of Slovenia, only joined the European Union in 2013, a result not only of deeper economic and social problems, but also indicative of Slovenia's attempt to block Croatia's EU entry -- a legacy of Yugoslavia's break-up which gave rise to various border and other disputes between the two states. Serbia, the political core of the old Yugoslavia, lies just to the south of Croatia, and has only recently reached a tenuous political accommodation with ethnic-Albanian Kosovo to its south. Serbia's accession to the European Union is still some years away. As for the southernmost old Yugoslavian regions of Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Macedonia, they still represent Third World Europe.
And so, the future map of Europe will not be a united one. The idea of one Europe projecting power with the same unifying dynamic as the United States and China is a chimera. Neither, however, will Europe suffer the brutal divisions of the Cold War and its immediate, bloody aftermath. A map of stunning complexity is being drawn, one of at least four layers: states within both the European Union and the eurozone, states within the European Union but outside the eurozone; states outside the European Union altogether; and states whether within or without the European Union and eurozone but in back-breakingly severe crises, such as Greece.
Generally speaking, the farther removed from Germany and the Low Countries, the greater the propensity for crises and underdevelopment. And the farther to the east and to the southeast, the greater the possibility for falling -- at least somewhat -- under the sway of an energy-rich, cash-rich Russia. Yes, the Warsaw Pact may be dead, but with Russia next door and no longer the chaotic mess it was under Boris Yeltsin, the degree of Russian involvement in a given economy will add yet another complexifying layer to the European map. And this is to say nothing of the increasing economic and demographic proximity of Turkey and North Africa to Europe.
Croatia's accession is a sign less of emerging unity than of Europe's undeniable complications.