This will be the last amendment to be discussed in Committee. It would enable the House to revisit the question of whether Croatia was ready to join the EU before this Bill ratifying the accession treaty came into effect. The Minister made it clear on Second Reading that the accession process that Croatia had followed had involved more rigorous demands than those placed on Romania or Bulgaria, or any of the earlier accession states. However, I think it is accepted on all sides that, unless things have changed dramatically since the Second Reading debate, Croatia has not yet fulfilled all that is expected of it. Much progress has clearly been made, and that is to be welcomed, but more undoubtedly remains to be done.
The European Commission is continuing its monitoring process, and the Minister mentioned that a further report was expected next spring. He provided the more accurate date of next March for its delivery, and we expect it to be the final report. On Croatia’s progress in dealing with domestic war crimes, the Minister said on Second Reading that the Government’s assessment was “almost complete”, but that more work was still required. The amendment would allow the House the opportunity to assess whether Croatia had made further progress and whether the process had been completed.
On the Croatian civil justice system, the Minister said on Second Reading that despite a significant number of additional judges being appointed to focus on the backlog of outstanding civil cases, the number of such cases had increased. About 844,000 new cases had been brought before the civil courts during the first half of 2012, and only 836,00 cases had been resolved during that period. In fact, not only was the backlog not being reduced, it was getting worse.
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The Minister said—I quote him for the sake of accuracy—that
“although we accept that further work needs to be done, we think that Croatia has made good progress”.—[Official Report, 6 November 2012; Vol. 552, c. 765.]
It has been claimed that the process is almost complete, yet it is claimed also that further work needs to be done. My amendment would allow the House, perhaps early next year, to determine whether progress had been made, whether progress continues to be made or whether the backlog in civil cases has begun to reduce.
I hope this fairly minor amendment will find favour with the Government and, indeed, among Members on both sides of the Committee.
Let me draw the Committee’s attention to the conclusion of the European Scrutiny Committee’s report, entitled “Croatia: monitoring the accession process”. Paragraph 1.89 states:
“Logically, the House should not be asked to ratify the accession treaty until the pre-accession monitoring has been completed, and it has been demonstrated that Croatia is indeed fully prepared.”
I concur completely with that conclusion, and my amendment gives the House of Commons the opportunity to be able to confirm for itself that all is in order before this Bill is passed. I commend it to the Committee.