BERLIN, Jan 9 (Hina) - As the European Union chair in this year's first half, Ireland will try to help Croatia achieve EU membership candidate status in these six months, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said in Berlin on
Friday.
BERLIN, Jan 9 (Hina) - As the European Union chair in this year's first
half, Ireland will try to help Croatia achieve EU membership candidate
status in these six months, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said in
Berlin on Friday.#L#
Talking to reporters after meeting Croatian PM Ivo Sanader, Ahern said
Ireland and Croatia would work together during Ireland's presidency of
the EU to have the European Commission define its opinion of Croatia's
membership application by the end of March. If the outcome is
positive, the matter will be referred to the European Council for
further procedure, he added.
Ahern and Sanader met on the margins of an international conference
organised by the Bertelsmann foundation, which has pooled numerous
political and economic figures from Europe.
"Prime Minister Ahern, both as Ireland's prime minister and European
Union chairman, has fully supported Croatia's ambitions to win in this
year's first half a positive opinion from the European Commission and
membership candidate status," said Sanader.
Before the conference, he met the leader of Germany's Christian
Democratic Union, Angela Merkel, and his Turkish and Romanian
counterparts, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Adrian Nastase respectively.
A meeting with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was cancelled due
to Schroeder's illness.
(Hina) ha sb