"We have adopted the joint declaration and recommendations with the clear expression of support to Croatia for the start of its membership talks with the European Union on 17 March," the head of the Croatian parliamentary foreign affairs committee, Gordan Jandrokovic, told a news conference after the meeting.
Jandrokovic, who co-chaired the meeting, voiced hope that Croatia would "really open a new chapter in its development and start the negotiations with the EU" on that day.
The declaration reads that Croatia has made great progress in all fields and that it is successful in reforms it has launched. The document also contains recommendations supporting these reforms and highlights the importance of their further implementation, Jandrokovic said.
"This is the right path to go on which we have encouraged our Croatian colleagues" to continue with legislative reforms and their implementation in the practices, said Pal Schmitt of Hungary, who co-chaired the meeting, on behalf of the European Parliament.
He went on to say that "further efforts, nevertheless, are expected to ensure full cooperation of Croatia with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)."
"This condition is essential for the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the European Commission," Schmitt told the news conference.
Asked by reporters whether there was any mention of possible alternatives if the talks did not start on 17 March, Jandrokovic said that this was not the topic of the meeting, and reiterated that participants discussed the political and economic situation in Croatia and fulfilment of the Madrid and Copenhagen criteria.
We are not considering any alternative as I cannot imagine that the talks with Turkey will begin and that they would not begin with "a country which is in the very heart of Europe" such as Croatia that belongs more than a thousand years, Schmitt added.
The two-day meeting brought together 12 deputies of the most important political groups in the European Parliament, as well as Austrian Johannes Swoboda, the EP rapporteur for Croatia, Georges Santer on behalf of the Presidency-in-Office of the Council of the European Union and David Daly, the head of the Unit, Croatian Team in the Directorate General for Enlargement, who was in Zagreb on behalf of the European Commission.
The Joint Committee, which represents a new form of cooperation between the Croatian Sabor and the European Parliament, was set up following a March 2004 decision of the EP and a 15 October 2004 decision of the Croatian parliament.