"Postponing the talks would not be good because it would give a new opportunity to anti-reformist and anti-European groups and because it would be much more difficult to meet the Union's requests, including the one regarding full cooperation with the Hague tribunal," Pupovac said at a meeting with a dozen French reporters in the parliament.
Answering questions from reporters from leading French media companies, Pupovac expressed hope that the talks would not be postponed and that the EU Council of Ministers would confirm March 17 as the date of the start of talks.
He said that despite missed opportunities in the past, Croatia had been making major efforts in recent months to solve the remaining outstanding issue, that of the runaway general Ante Gotovina.
"We want our friends in the EU to understand that the dilemma 'Gotovina or Europe' cannot be resolved by allowing Gotovina to win. We want Europe to win in Croatia," he added.
Asked about the status of Serbs in Croatia, Pupovac said that the Serb community today was a democratic segment of the Croatian society, that all problems had not been solved, but that Serbs now had a chance to solve them in a democratic system.
Croatian Serbs want Croatia to join the EU as soon as possible for the sake of further democratisation of society, he said.
The French reporters also put questions to an independent representative on the list of the Social Democratic Party, Ivo Josipovic, an expert on international law, who expressed belief that most Croatian citizens supported cooperation with the tribunal and Croatia's admission to the EU.
There is no relevant political force in Croatia which does not support the country's admission to the EU and advocates non-compliance with the tribunal's requests, he said.
Pupovac and Josipovic were interviewed by journalists from Liberation, Le Figaro, Le Monde, La Croix, La Tribune and other media companies.