Croatia has a population of 4.68 million, and ethnic Croats consist of 85 percent of whole population. 11.5 percent of total population was ethnic Serbs and they constituted local minority groups in the districts. Krajina and Petrinja were predominantly inhabited by ethnic Serbs. (Weller 1992, p.569) Although Croats did not possess as strong domestic sovereignty as Slovenians did, it did satisfy effective authority and popular legitimacy in some degree. First, Croats were incapable to install territorial control against Serb aggression on the Krajina, but still had a substantial autonomy to govern its territory. Unlike Slovenians successfully repulsed the Serb aggression, Croats failed to defend its border against Serb, Serb “controlled approximately …show more content…
(Coggins 2014, pp.112-113) The European powers were more generally sensitive to potential spill-over effects such as refugees and intended to implement a common foreign policy to manage the crisis. The initial policy preference of the EC in the recognition issues on Slovenia and Croatia was preserving status quo. (Crawford 1996, Coggins 2014, Lucarelli 2000) This is because the fear from demonstration effect to the minorities in their borders when the secessionist claims are accepted, and furthermore it would bring international instability. (Coggins 2014, p.112) Another reason for the European states such as Britain, France, and Germany was they had a strong shared interest to make a further progress the Maastricht treaty in negotiation at the moment. A unilateral action breaking out from the initial commitment: preserving status-quo would “undermine the credibility of EC … to construct a common foreign policy.” (Crawford 1996, p.483) Indeed, on June 23, the 12 member states of the EC decided “not to recognize any unilateral declaration of independence by the two break-away republics.” (Lucarelli …show more content…
Scholars were eager to explain the German initiative: for example, Lucarelli points out the role of media: which broadcasts the violence in the Yugoslavia and resulted as a pressure to party politicians, others indicates ideological interpretation of German leadership was crucial in this decision. (Crawford 1996, Lucarelli 2000, Coggins 2014) Next stage is on the EC’s final compliance to follow the German recognitions on Slovenia and Croatia. On this stage, there are also plural explanations, but also a consent that Britain and France have a lot to lose if they do not appease this issue with Germany. (Crawford 1996) But almost all of the explanation was based on the behavioral logic of consequences. I would provide an alternative account based on the logic of appropriateness on the two stages leading to the recognition on Slovenia and