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Originally posted by JM i was serious in my post. just go to Slovenia and compare the roads. It's like night & day. I spent a ton of time in Slovenia, considering I grew up 5 miles from the border... so i guess i know what i'm talking about. >JM<

What year was this? I used to live in Austria and travelled to parts of Slovenia all the time.

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Retro ...

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Originally posted by occrider What year was this? I used to live in Austria and travelled to parts of Slovenia all the time.

2000-2003.

I remember Austria as a kid only... Crossing over the alps made me roadsick, driving through all those curves through the mountains. Of course this was 15 years ago

>JM<

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Originally posted by occrider I vacationed in Croatia during the Balkan war ... I don't really remember much of the drive except for the ocasional tank or fighter jet, but I do remember getting to our destination in one peice on their roads .

well, i guess we are taking about different times here

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As for Poland ... don't ever eat at their burger king unless you want food poisoning

thanks for the tips...

i do recomend good "expensive" polish resturants and also their golf courses

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Originally posted by ShadoWolf The disparity between those countries isn't as large as with Turkey; see below. Anyway the women can come anytime they want. http://www.jerak-online.com/ No they're not. Look at GDP per capita. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0874911.html

thats disturbing, you were right

anyway, its about as poor as the other two countries negotiating now =)

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Originally posted by JM makes me wonder what kind of roads you have in Canada, to which you're comparing the Croatian roads to. i was serious in my post. just go to Slovenia and compare the roads. It's like night & day. I spent a ton of time in Slovenia, considering I grew up 5 miles from the border... so i guess i know what i'm talking about. >JM<

Canada's roads are quite bad imo although they are really straight and never turn lol...

compared to slovenia i would say that croatia had better roads by far...

i dont know how long time ago you were in croatia tho? seemed like all their raods were VERY new

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Originally posted by Spacey Orange way off topic

Welcome to the political forum

I bet Turkey has crappy roads.

As if we needed another reason to not let them into the EU.

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Nathan Fake - Outhouse (Valentino Kanzyani Remix) || ID PLZ! PVD ID!!!
Disco and classical had sex while watching a sci-fi movie. Their child: trance.

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Originally posted by JM do you really think it will only take 5 years? don't get me wrong - i LOVE my homeland and want the economy and its people to prosper. though, after living in the US for 13 years, and then spending 3 summers in a row in Croatia, i am very much bothered by the inefficiencies of both the government and the private sector. the regulations governing free enterprise as well as entrepreneurship are ridiculous and hamper both the economy, and current and potential businesses.

Yeah, that basically is a problem. People keep talking about it all the time, but noone does anything to change that. I guess that if you'd cut down bueraucracy, you'd have to fire a lot of people, so noone is willing to take the necessarry steps needed for the revitalization of economy.

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the infrastructure is also not up to par. roads and highways are poorly constructed, and finish months if not years after the estimated completion date.

That really was true until 2-3 years ago. Now we have a full scale highway from Zagreb to Rijeka, Split, Dubrovnik, Sibenik, Osjek, Zadar...basically to every important town. Now it takes me only about 5 hours to reach the shore with my car. People with normal cars do it in 2 hours.

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the educational system (k-12) is good, though all my friends attending colleges and universities had much more negative to say in comparison to the positives.

Depends on which faculty. Mine (electrical engeneering) is pretty good and already adopted the EU Bologne declaration. Meaning that I'll have a master of science degree when I complete it. Whee!
Some others, however, do suck totally.

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weak industrial base in comparison to newly accepted eastern countries. only thing i see Croatia is doing good in is tourism. Nobody wants to pay more agricultural subsidies either...

Yeah, that is sadly true. The whole concept of pretvorba i privatizacija was really just a way to allow criminals to extract money from the industry while the common folk were occupied with the war.

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Croatia has a looong way to go to becoming up to par to join the EU. And it starts at home with the people and their attitudes and willingness to change.

I dunno, EU officials say that 2009 is a likely date. Really, we're not that much behind new EU members as we used to be.

The thing that bothers me is the growing anti-EU sentiment here. We have stupid minor parties who spend all their money on planting jumbo posters with anti-EU slogans (based on false pretenses, of course).

Anyway, I didn't know so many of you guys came to visit here. Wow!

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1+1=10

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Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 The thing that bothers me is the growing anti-EU sentiment here. We have stupid minor parties who spend all their money on planting jumbo posters with anti-EU slogans (based on false pretenses, of course).

If Turkey and Croatia both enter the EU, they'll be nothing stopping the Turks from "finishing the job."

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Nathan Fake - Outhouse (Valentino Kanzyani Remix) || ID PLZ! PVD ID!!!
Disco and classical had sex while watching a sci-fi movie. Their child: trance.

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Originally posted by ShadoWolf If Turkey and Croatia both enter the EU, they'll be nothing stopping the Turks from "finishing the job."

I really don't think that Croatia is that well off that we have to fear an invasion of Turks. Anyway, as Andrew said, people feared exactly the same thing when the 10 new EU members were about to join. I remember reading a story in the news that said a million slovak gypsies were just waiting for the borders to open to rush into the UK. One of the requirements for a country to officially become a member of the EU is that it needs to have a solid economy and that the living standard in it should be near that of existing EU members. Some areas of Turkey, especially eastern provinces, have yet much to do to reach those EU standards, but once they do, they will feel no need to migrate.

There is already a huge amount of Turkish citizens living in EU countries, especially Germany. It is really not that difficult for them to get a working permit, which means that the amount of Turks in EU will not change significantly when they officially become a member, since they already have no significant obstacles if they decide to move there. The real problem about immigration is illegal immigration of poor and uneducated people that mostly comes from Africa.

Besides, if the Turks start to make problems, just look for the Croatian army. We've stopped them in the past and we'll do it again. After all, they did learn some of their brutal war tactics like sticking live people on sticks from slavic Balkan countries

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Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 That really was true until 2-3 years ago. Now we have a full scale highway from Zagreb to Rijeka, Split, Dubrovnik, Sibenik, Osjek, Zadar...basically to every important town. Now it takes me only about 5 hours to reach the shore with my car. People with normal cars do it in 2 hours.

its like they skimped out on the quality part, having some areas of highways full of bumps, cracks etc. wonder who ended up pocketing some of the money during the construction...

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Besides, if the Turks start to make problems, just look for the Croatian army. We've stopped them in the past and we'll do it again. After all, they did learn some of their brutal war tactics like sticking live people on sticks from slavic Balkan countries

well said!



>JM<