Croatia to join the EU in 2013

CROATIA has signed a treaty to join the EU in 2013, a bittersweet milestone as the bloc prepared to take on a sluggish economy it will have to drag along at the time of its worst crisis.

Meanwhile, EU leaders said they were postponing a decision about whether to make Serbia a candidate for membership.

The EU hailed Croatia’s signing as a historic day for the ex-communist country, but the Croatian government’s decade-long effort could turn out to have been a giant waste of time if the union’s 27 countries fail to solve a financial crisis that threatens to unravel the 53-year-old project to integrate the continent.