This July 1, the Republic of Croatia celebrates its first decade in Europe, its 10th birthday as a full-fledged member state of the European Union. Exactly ten years ago, the Treaty on the Accession of the Republic of Croatia to the European Union came into effect, whereby Croatia, after an almost equally long accession process, fulfilled its national and foreign strategic goals, joining the unique political and economic community of European countries.
With the severance of all ties with the former Yugoslavia and the proclamation of independence in 1991, the conditions were created for Croatia’s historical, geographical, social, and cultural affiliation to the European area to materialize through official, institutional ties with the European Union. The first official steps were taken at the beginning of the new millennia: at the end of February 2003, Croatia applied for full membership in the European Union, which began its long, exhaustive, and somewhat arduous journey through accession negotiations, i.e., through the procedure of harmonizing its own legal system with the EU acquis. At the end of that journey, Croatian citizens overwhelmingly voted in favor of membership in the European Union on a referendum, thus expressing their unequivocal support for Croatia’s participation in the process of European integration. After signing the Accession Treaty, Croatia finally welcomed its membership on July 1, 2013. In the meantime, at the beginning of this year, Croatia also entered Schengen and the Eurozone, adopting the euro as its official currency and thereby further strengthening its ties with the European community.
Therefore, on this occasion, the Croatian History Museum, instead of a birthday cake, presents a birthday exhibition that aims to mark the Republic of Croatia’s first ten summers as an active and so far the youngest EU member state, and offer a glimpse, with the help of selected materials from its collections, into the not-so-distant past of the Croatian journey through the whirlwind of the European integration process.

Author: Tomislav Čanković

Europski trg (Zagreb), 1 - 7 July 2023