"I can only say that I am very optimistic, and I have reason to be, that the talks will start soon. This is not only wishful thinking, I build my optimism on facts," Racan said at a news conference on Croatia and the EU, held ahead of a visit by Hague war crimes tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte to Zagreb on Friday.
The news conference was also attended by European Parliament officials Hannes Swoboda, the Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee rapporteur on Croatia, and Jan Marinus Wiersma, who were invited by the SDP as vice-presidents of the Group of the European Socialist Party in the European Parliament in charge of EU enlargement.
"We have made an important step. Now we are facing a very difficult and responsible task - negotiations," the SDP leader said.
Speaking about today's visit of UN tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte to Zagreb, Racan said the SDP did not want to dramatise the visit, but it considered it important because Croatian citizens wanted to know if the talks with the EU were near.
Jan Marinus Wiersma expressed hope the talks would start soon.
We are here today because we hope that the talks between the EU and Croatia will start soon and we hope that this weekend we will come closer to that goal, Wiersma said.
Hannes Swoboda said that the previous government, led by Racan, and the incumbent government had made many steps towards the EU, but that many steps remained to be made in years to come.
Swoboda said he hoped that Del Ponte's opinion of Croatia's cooperation with the Hague war crimes tribunal had improved significantly. He said that he believed the cooperation had improved over recent months and hoped that this would be of crucial importance, as well as that Croatia deserved the start of talks.
In any case, it is clear that the Croatian government has to continue the process of reforms and its cooperation with the UN tribunal because any stalemate in that cooperation would negatively affect the talks, he said.
With strong emotions and with a critical mind I will follow these talks and I hope to give a small contribution to Croatia's admission to the EU, Swoboda said.