Fish and Bananas

Everyone seems to have an opinion about ZERP [Zaštičeni ekološko-ribolovni pojas] these days. Mention the acronym ZERP even in polite company and you’ll quite likely hear a few choice words about Slovenians, their EU presidency, Italian fishing boats and the EU in general. The most widely heard commentary is that the Slovenians are abusing their Presidency of the EU to resolve their own personal border disputes, and are seemingly doing so with the full support of the EU. Disputes over international fishing rights are neither new, nor a particularly Croatian phenomenon – one only has to remember the ‘cod wars’, the ‘halibut wars’, or the countless disputes between the British and the French to realise this. So if arguing over fishing rights is such a run of the mill activity, why is it that it has become such a hot topic in Croatia?

I suggest that it is because, for many ‘ordinary citizens’ [mali gradani], this dispute over ZERP is yet more evidence as to why joining the EU is a bad idea. Indeed, such is the seeming unwillingness to join the EU that – at least in this part of Croatia - it is actually quite difficult to find someone who will speak about Croatia’s accession to the EU in positive terms. But where is this hesitance to join the EU coming from? The first answer that comes to mind is that the ordinary citizens in Croatia are being fed by a campaign in a media that is quite anti-Europe in its stance. This is not a novel line of thought at all. The willingness of the Croatian population to soak up everything presented by media controlling politicians is a line of argument that has certainly been used around this neck of the woods before. And when one thinks about it, one definitely can understand that the powers-that-be have a clear interest in identifying ZERP as the reason why ‘storm clouds’ are forming over Croatia’s EU accession bid. Much more politically expedient to blame this stormy weather front on ZERP than on anything else.

Nevertheless, such a line of argument contains the inherent assumption that ordinary citizens in Croatia readily believe everything that is written and spoken in the media. Listen to the commentaries of anyone whilst they are reading a newspaper or listening to the news about the latest activities of politicians and you will start to doubt this one. Your Croatian vocabulary will expand by a number of words and phrases that cannot be found in polite dictionaries. Another problem with this particular line of argument is that it infers that if one struggles past this wall of anti-European propaganda, one can find the truth of the matter about Croatia’s accession to Europe. Yet whose truth about joining Europe is it? On the website of the EU delegation to Croatia, it is possible to see that an attempt has been made to dispel certain ‘prejudices’ about Croatia’s accession to the EU. One of the ‘prejudices’ that is addressed is: “Will the country and its coast in particular be bought by foreigners after accession to the EU?” The following response is offered, and I quote it in its entirety: “It would be impossible for foreigners to buy just any part of Croatian land. The Croatian government might put more emphasis on giving concessions rather than on selling. When it comes to private ownership, just like in any country in the world, it is always up to the owner to decide to whom and under which conditions he/she would sell his or her property. Furthermore, Croatian citizens will be equally able to buy property in other EU member states. Although freedom to buy and sell is part of the market economy, no new member state “was bought” after the accession (in the case of Slovenia, the same fears existed), nor any EU member state did lose its sovereignty due to the free movement of capital. Croatia will even after entering the EU keep some legal mechanisms that will allow it to protect its interests in this respect. Therefore, fears in the matter are unfounded”. Another version of the ‘truth’ about Croatia joining Europe one could say.

When I was listening to someone the other day who was holding a polemic about how they [EU citizens] were going to come here to buy everything up and would pillage Croatia of all its assets, I pointed out that this was one of the prejudices about Croatian joining the EU that the EU has discussed on its website. Their response was extremely dismissive: pure European propaganda, not to be believed and a lie to serve greedy European interests. This response was interesting not only because it was further evidence of the un-foundedness of the belief that all Croatian’s soak up everything that is written in the media like unquestioning sponges, but also because it clearly suggests that some truths about Europe are more palatable than others. And I think it is this point that should be explored a little more, rather than getting side tracked into a debate about what is true or what isn’t, or trying to replace one ‘truth’ about Europe with another. Why is it that the argument that the EU and its citizens are trying to plunder Croatia of all its assets seems to be much more readily accepted than any counter argument that could be offered in its place? No one here is saying that Croatia is the land of milk and honey, and everyone agrees that there are major problems surrounding bureaucracy, corruption, and the way the legal system works. So surely if Croatia’s entry into the EU is a possible solution to these problems, which everyone agrees are present, then people here should be jumping at the chance to join and more than willing to listen to arguments that promote Croatia’s accession to Europe. But they aren’t, and in fact seem more often than not resolutely determined to not listen to them, which at first glance can seem quite mysterious.

Considering an example from another context is perhaps helpful here. On the British Foreign Office website some quite stern words are uttered about the damaging effect of Euro myths: ‘The spread of myths can inhibit serious and necessary debate about the place of the EU in our lives’. Alongside the introductory statement about the damage these myths do to rational debate, there is a picture of a banana. This image of the banana evokes memories of a euro story that appeared to cause some consternation amongst the great British public. For those who don’t know the banana story, a number of British papers ran the story that a directive from the EU was going to determine the correct curvature of bananas and that from now on all bananas of a certain curvature would be banned. The truth of the matter in this hullabaloo was really quite irrelevant - it is out there somewhere, probably embedded in some exceedingly dry euro-document – it agitated people and got them talking. Now I am quite sure – and I take this certainty from my own position on the matter – that the majority of the British population really don't care about the curvature of the bananas they consume. In everyday life where one is worrying about bills, work obligations and other issues, a concern over the bend in one’s bananas is probably not high on one’s list of daily preoccupations. So why did this business about bananas capture the British imagination as it did? The answer is surely because it touched on a raw nerve. The media that promoted the banana story did not whip up the British populace into a passion about bananas from nothing. Rather, these stories fed into a fear that was already present, which is also visible in concerns about the place of the Queen’s head on the Euro, the application of metric measuring system and the endangered pint, the banning of cheddar cheese and so on. It seems that a particularly British fear about being a member of the European Union is that British sovereignty will be eroded, and thus the appeal of such stories like the banana story is because they touch upon this fear.

The same I think can be said about the current interest in ZERP, it touches upon a raw nerve. I don't think one has to look far, or to be Einstein to work out what this raw nerve scenario is in the case of Croatia. Nor do I claim any novelty in making the connection because it is a point that has been made a number of times before. The reason why Croatia left the last group of nations was because it was felt that Croatia’s interests were coming second place to the interests of other members of the group. A point that seems to get quickly lost in the wash with the cacophony of commentary surrounding the break up of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - about how it was caused by a nationalist frenzy and simmering ethnic hatred. Again one can debate what is ‘true’ here as much as one wants, but the fact remains that if you go out and ask someone why Croatia left the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia they will most probably tell you that it was because Croatian assets and profits were flowing in a unidirectional way towards Belgrade. It is exceedingly easy for outside observers to dismiss this argument as being part and parcel of the nationalist rhetoric, but the bottom line is that this is what the majority of people think here.

From the perspective of ordinary citizens, the track record of European involvement in their everyday life is not so great. Although one can stridently, and with every right, argue that the EU is ploughing money into Croatia to fund reforms, the majority of citizens don't feel this directly in their daily lives. What they see is big European companies buying up Croatian banks, or telecommunications companies whose concept of customer service appears to be as limited as it was before. Mentioning no names here, if the customer service of one European owned monolith is how things are going to be when/if Croatia is in the European Union then the European way of doing things is definitely something to be avoided. Those who work for smaller European firms experience the same small wages and the same working hours. And then there are the stories about how the coastline is being brought up by foreign investors and will price Croatian buyers out of the market. Again one can offer the counter-argument that foreigners brought these things because they were for sale, in fact one can use the argument offered on the EU website: “When it comes to the private ownership, just like in any country in the world, it is always up to the owner to decide to whom and under which conditions he/she would sell his or her property”. No one forced the owners to sell their houses, banks, or telecommunications companies, and all of them will be paying some form of tax that will be going into the Croatian economy. But, it still does not deter from the fact that something that all three examples share, and irrespective of whether these investors are doing this on a large scale or a small scale, is that the profit [after tax] they make from these purchases is going to leave Croatia. Yes, the money they spend will stimulate the economy, yes it will make jobs and yes it is definitely welcome, but the majority of investors are not investing in Croatia because of some huge love for the country: they are doing so because at some point they want to make a profit, which is not going to stay in Croatia. The argument in the commentaries about ZERP takes on a similar form – they are going to come here, take our fish and make a profit from the sale of our assets [which are in this case fish] outside of Croatia.

It must all serve to provoke a sense of déjà-vu, and rattle the chains of ghosts past. And interestingly for the point I am making here, on the EU website it mentions that the fear a state could be bought after EU accession was also something the Slovenians felt prior to EU accession. Perhaps there are some shared ghosts here. From this perspective, the unwillingness of people here to listen to counter-arguments about the positive benefits of joining Europe is a bit more understandable. A good number of ordinary citizens had to listen to quite a few years of counter-arguments as to why being a member of a club was a ‘good’ thing for the Croatian economy and Croatia in general and it is maybe not surprising they are not interested in hearing any more of them.