Complex sentence: Croatia joined the European Union on 1 July 2013 as the 28th member state, and in spite of the rather slow post-recession recovery, in terms of income per capita it is still ahead of some European Union member states such as Bulgaria, Romania, and Latvia.
Split into simpler sentences: Croatia joined the European Union on 1 July 2013 as the 28th member state. In spite of the rather slow post-recession recovery, in terms of income per capita it is still ahead of some European Union member states such as Bulgaria, Romania, and Latvia.