The completion of the ratification process in time for Croatia to join the EU on 1 July 2013 seemed to be at risk for a certain period due to the issue of former Croatian clients' transferred foreign currency savings in LB and uncertainties as to whether Slovenia would manage to ratify the treaty in time, as an early election seemed to be in the offing.
However, those fears were dispelled by a memorandum of understanding signed on 11 March 2013 by Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic and his Slovenian counterpart Janez Jansa in the Slovenian town of Mokrice, which provided for further handling the LB issue.
The memorandum also paved the way for the smooth and unanimous ratification of the Croatia-EU treaty in the Slovenian Zbor on 2 April.
Slovenia was the 23rd country to ratify the treaty and at the time only four more countries remained to do so.
Upon the Mokrice agreement, it became certain that none of the remaining countries would make any problem in the ratification process given the European Commission's positive monitoring report.
Presenting the last report at a special government session in Zagreb this past 26 March, Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele said Croatia was monitored under a special regime and that he was extremely glad that all the demands the EU had set Croatia had been or would soon be met.
However, things looked different in October 2012, when German Bundestag Speaker Norbert Lammert told the "Welt am Sonntag" that Croatia was obviously not ready for EU entry yet. He said the EU was not ready for further enlargement at the moment but needed consolidation.
Before Lammert, another Christian Democrat, the chairman of the Bundestag European Affairs Committee, Gunther Krichbaum, also spoke against Croatia's accession to the EU. Even before, CDU/CSU politicians advocated stopping EU enlargement but always mentioned Croatia as an exception.
Although Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic was in Berlin less than a month before those statements, he again visited Germany in late October. The Croatian media claimed the purpose of his second trip to the German capital was to "explain some things to Germany".
The official reason for Milanovic's trip was to attend a ceremony celebrating the 60th anniversary of the German Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations. However, he also met with German politicians, including Lammert, stating from Berlin that what had happened in Germany over the last few weeks was "a storm in a teacup" and that he believed in Croatia and what had been accomplished.
Croatia's Treaty of Accession to the EU was signed in Brussels on 9 December 2011, and Croatians voted at a referendum for their country's EU membership on 22 January 2012.
Slovakia was the first country to confirm the treaty on 1 February 2012. In the same month, the parliaments of Hungary, Bulgaria and Italy did the same. The then Parliament Speaker, Boris Sprem, attended the ratification in Bulgaria and Italy.
The president of the Italian Senate, Renato Schifani, said on February 28, 2012 that they wanted to ratify the treaty as soon as possible because they considered it important and that they felt friendship and brotherly feelings towards Croatia. "We hope that this will be a signal to other countries to speed up the process of ratification," Schifani said.
The next countries to do so were Malta and Latvia in March 2012, Lithuania in April and Cyprus in May 2012. Last June it was ratified by the Czech Republic, Ireland and Romania.
The ratification in the second half of 2012 was ushered in by Austria whose parliament did it on 4 July, with the then Acting Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko in attendance. A few days later, Croatian President Ivo Josipovic arrived in Vienna for the document signing ceremony.
"Today is an important day for Croatia. The swift ratification is also a message that Croatia is welcome in Europe," he said in the presence of Austrian President Heinz Fischer, who invited him to the signing ceremony.
By the end of 2012, the document was confirmed by Estonia, Portugal, Poland, Luxembourg, Spain, Greece, Sweden and Finland.
The first country to ratify the Croatia-EU treaty in 2013 was France on 17 January. After that Great Britain finalised the procedure for the ratification on 21 January, followed by a break of more than two months, until the European Commission released its final monitoring report and the LB issue with Slovenia was solved.
This April, Slovenia ratified the document, followed by Belgium and the Netherlands the same month. In early May, the treaty was ratified by Denmark and Germany's Bundestag did so today.
For the German ratification to be formally completed, the treaty needs to be approved by the Bundesrat, which is treated as a formality and is expected in early June.