Speaking of the year 2009 as the year of Croatia's possible admission to the EU, as cited by the European Parliament in a resolution on Croatia's progress in the accession process, Mesic said on Wednesday he was not surprised that that year was being mentioned because Croatia was meeting all obligations and adopting European standards for its own sake.
"We plan to complete the process by 2009 and we will act in keeping with European standards," Mesic told reporters in Dubrovnik, where he opened an international conference on waterways in protected areas.
Asked about excerpts of an audio recording of a meeting of Croatia's civil and military leadership on the island of Brijuni on 31 July 1995, broadcast by Croatian Television on Tuesday evening, Mesic said he had nothing to say about it because he was not in Zagreb at the time and did not see the broadcast.
"I have nothing to say because I did not attend those meetings... Croatia cooperated with the Hague war crimes tribunal and its prosecution in the way that was defined by its constitutional law regulating cooperation with the Hague tribunal. Croatia did all that it was required to do through the Office for Cooperation with the ICTY. Any speculation is groundless because Croatia is abiding by what it adopted, and small countries can survive only if they abide by principles and obligations," Mesic said.
Commenting on the adoption of the resolution earlier in the day, PM Ivo Sanader mentioned two crucial elements.
It is important for Croatia that the current European Parliament, whose term expires in June 2009, confirms the admission agreement between the EU and Croatia. "If that happened, it would be a big success for Croatia," he said.
After June 2009, elections will be held for the European Parliament, which would postpone the ratification of the EU-Croatia agreement, he said.
The other important issue are challenges mentioned in the resolution, problems which Croatia is yet to deal with, Sanader said, downplaying the importance of the EP's decision to remove from Croatia's progress report a provision on the need to settle the Croatian-Slovene border dispute through arbitration.
The fact that we did not win arbitration, as some claimed, is not crucial, because it is not the EP, but the two countries that are to decide about arbitration, the PM said.
Speaking of 2009 as the year of Croatia's possible admission to the EU, Sanader said: "I believe that this deadline can be achieved". The most important thing for Croatia now is to have good accession negotiations and complete them quickly, Sanader said, adding that he was confident this was possible.