BRUSSELS, Jan 12 (Hina) - Belgium is wiling to offer Croatia all necessary assistance on its path towards the European Union, Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel said on Monday after talks with his Croatian counterpart Miomir
Zuzul.
BRUSSELS, Jan 12 (Hina) - Belgium is wiling to offer Croatia all
necessary assistance on its path towards the European Union, Belgian
Foreign Minister Louis Michel said on Monday after talks with his
Croatian counterpart Miomir Zuzul.#L#
I promised Croatia Belgium's assistance on its path towards the
European Union, Minister Michel said after the meeting with Croatia's
Foreign Minister Zuzul.
Michel announced his country's financial assistance in programmes
aimed at facilitating refugee returns and expert assistance for
Croatia's bids to adjust itself to European standards, including
pre-accession programmes which Belgium has already okayed for Bulgaria
and Romania, which should enter the European Union in 2007.
The Belgian minister went on to say that he highly appreciated the
organisation of the recent parliamentary elections which were
conducted in compliance with what he said were 'classical European
standards'.
He said he would visit Croatia in the near future.
Minister Zuzul voiced satisfaction with assurances about Belgium's
readiness to offer help to Croatia on its road towards the European
Union and NATO.
Zuzul recalled that so far Belgium had very much helped Croatia,
especially in the reintegration of the Croatian Danube River region.
He said that some concrete forms of assistance had been defined at his
talks with Minister Michel, but declined to give any more detail about
this. He only added that more would be said on the matter during the
announced visit of the Belgian minister in Croatia.
The Croatian foreign minister, who arrived in Brussels on Sunday
afternoon, will join a Croatian delegation led by Prime Minister Ivo
Sanader, that will visit Brussels and Strasbourg on Monday and
Tuesday.
The Croatian delegation's talks with top officials of the European
Commission and NATO are part of Sanader's tour of European capitals.
The tour is aimed at ensuring support to Croatia's aspirations to join
the European Union in 2007, together with Romania and Bulgaria.
Last week, PM Sanader was in the Vatican and Berlin.
On Monday afternoon, Sanader is to hold talks with EC President Romano
Prodi and the European Commissioner for agriculture and fisheries,
Franz Fischler. On Tuesday the Croatian PM will meet the new NATO
Secretary-General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
(Hina) ms