VIENNA, March 31 (Hina) - A meeting of the task force for Croatia withthe Hague-based UN tribunal's Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte andCroatian authorities will be held in April in Brussels, AustrianForeign Minister Ursula Plassnik
said in Vienna on Thursday commentingon current topics of Austria's foreign policy at a ceremony held onthe occasion of the publishing of a special issue of the EuropaeischeRundschau magazine.
VIENNA, March 31 (Hina) - A meeting of the task force for Croatia
with the Hague-based UN tribunal's Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte and
Croatian authorities will be held in April in Brussels, Austrian Foreign
Minister Ursula Plassnik said in Vienna on Thursday commenting on current
topics of Austria's foreign policy at a ceremony held on the occasion of the
publishing of a special issue of the Europaeische Rundschau magazine. The task force, established by the European Union on 23 March with the
purpose to assess Croatia's cooperation with the tribunal, will hold its first
session in Brussels in April, Plassnik said.
She said that there had been a danger of suspending preparations for
the start of accession talks between the EU and Croatia, and that Austria had
tried to prevent such an outcome.
Consequently, the task force was set up, consisting of officials of the
European Commission, the EU Council of Ministers, the current EU chair
Luxembourg, and Great Britain and Austria, which will chair the Union from 1
July to 31 December 2005 and from 1 January to 30 June 2006 respectively.
"This is very important for Austria, as its foreign policy is focused
on concretising the European prospects of south-eastern European countries,"
Plassnik said.