Signing of the Treaty of Accession to the European Union

Six years after the opening of accession negotiations, concluded on 30 June 2011, Croatian President Ivo Josipović and Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor sign in Brussels, with the heads of state and government of the EU- 27, the treaty formalising Croatia's accession to the EU as of 1 July 2013. As part of these negotiations, Croatia, the first country to join the Union after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, had to incorporate no less than 162,000 pages of European regulations into its national legal system, twice as many as the ten countries that joined the EU in 2004.

2011

23 December

Photo: HINA

Return of the left to power

After the victory of the centre-left coalition in the general election of 4 December 2011, Zoran Milanović, leader of the Social Democrats (SDP), replaced Jadranka Kosor (HDZ, centre-right) as Prime Minister, after she had led the country during the final two years of EU accession negotiations. After having enjoyed a parliamentary majority for two four-year parliamentary terms and exercised power for eight years, HDZ returned to the opposition benches.