Mired in recession, Croatia joins troubled EU  June 30, 2013
Croatia becomes the 28th member of the European Union at
midnight today, a milestone that caps the Adriatic republic's
recovery from war but is tinged with anxiety over the state of
the economy and the bloc it joins.  EU flags fluttered from a
stage in Zagreb's central square ahead of the evening's
festivities, though there have been few signs of the gushing
welcome that marked past expansions to ex-communist Eastern
Europe.  Croatia joins the bloc just over two decades after
declaring independence from federal Yugoslavia, the trigger for
four years of war in which some 20,000 people died. But, facing
a fifth year of recession and record unemployment of 21 percent,
few Croatians are in the mood to party.  The country of 4.4
million people, blessed with a coastline that attracts 10
million tourists each year, is one of seven that emerged from
the ashes of Yugoslavia during a decade of war in the 1990s.
Slovenia was first to join the EU, in 2004, but