I have been sending all sorts of things to Stefan Füle’s office in Brussels. As the European Union’s Commissioner for Enlargement, he is my best hope regarding crooked golf in Motovun, Istria, and elsewhere in Croatia. Not that the hope is great, I hasten to add. Even though crooked golf in Motovun is dead, no-one has gone to jail yet. And many people in government, from its top to its bottom, ought to have been in jail by now, for the scam was far from naïve. Today I received a sort of reply to my last submission from one of Füle’s many officers, and it borders on the ridiculous. As witnessed by the last Union’s annual report, which came out last month, Croatia is marching forward, I am told. And so is the Union. In the fullness of time, everything will be just fine. Crooked golf will disappear like the old dodo. And we will live happily ever after.

Addendum (November 21, 2016)

Even though Olli Rehn, File’s much more astute predecessor, was somewhat useful to me in my battle with crooked golf, my many missives to both commissioners have ultimately fallen on deaf ears. To the best of my knowledge, nothing has ever been done to follow up on my many leads concerning pervasive corruption and organized crime in Croatia. Again, no-one has gone to jail yet for the mind-boggling golf scam that stretched across the Adriatic coast of Croatia. Billions of euros were involved, too. Now that Croatia is in the European Union, the whole lot has been swept under the old rug. And everything is just fine, as it were. Except that the Union itself will eventually disappear like the old dodo. My battle with crooked golf shows why it should, too. For all practical purposes, it is nigh useless. A mere blip in Europe’s checkered history…