ZAGREB, Jan 19 (Hina) - There is no legal link between the approval of the European Commission's opinion on Croatia and the ratification of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), but there is a political link between the
two issues, the head of the European Commission Delegation to Croatia, Jacques Wunenburger, told a press conference in Zagreb on Monday.
ZAGREB, Jan 19 (Hina) - There is no legal link between the approval of
the European Commission's opinion on Croatia and the ratification of
the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), but there is a
political link between the two issues, the head of the European
Commission Delegation to Croatia, Jacques Wunenburger, told a press
conference in Zagreb on Monday.#L#
Wunenburger was speaking about the visit of the Croatian delegation
headed by Prime Minister Ivo Sanader to Brussels and Strasbourg last
week when Sanader met European Commission President Romano Prodi,
External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten, Enlargement Commissioner
Guenter Verheugen and European Parliament President Pat Cox.
Wunenburger pointed out several times that there was no legal link
between the SAA ratification and the opinion, which is also called the
avis, citing as examples Lithuania, Latvia and some other countries
whose agreements with the EU had not entered into force when the avis
was published or when membership talks began.
"Even if there is no legal link, there is obviously a political link
between the two issues, which means that we cannot expect that some
member states will still maintain a political reserve on the
ratification of the SAA and the approval of the Commission's opinion
and the start of the negotiations. Which does not mean that the SAA
has to be ratified, but that at least the process has to be set in
motion again," he said.
"I don't think the Commission would take the risk to issue an opinion,
either positive or negative, when we know that some member states will
not concur with it. I think this would be damaging for everybody,
including Croatia," he added.
"If these member states who have placed a political reserve on the
ratification of the SAA decide at the time the Commission's opinion is
released that the conditions have changed and that they can relieve
their reserve on the ratification of the SAA, then the process would
start again and we will face a situation where Croatia might be
declared a candidate, negotiations might be opened and the process of
ratification will go on," Wunenburger said.
He said the Commission was working on the opinion on Croatia according
to the set timetable and that he expected that it would be completed
this spring, without giving any specific date, but conceding that
"spring is a flexible notion".
Wunenburger noted that the European Union would apply the same
criteria and methodology as in the case of acceding countries.
As regards Croatia's application, he said that key parameters were
full cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, the
return of refugees, the implementation of the Constitutional Court on
National Minorities, judicial reform and good relations with
neighbours.
Wunenburger said that cooperation with the Hague tribunal was one of
the most difficult criteria Croatia was facing.
"We do not have first-hand information on how cooperation works with
the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia),
so we do rely on the ICTY's opinion. If they say there is full
cooperation, we are satisfied," he said, adding "we will not judge on
words but on deeds".
Asked by a reporter from the Spanish EFE news agency to comment on the
statement by Croatian Foreign Minister Miomir Zuzul that Croatian
media had correctly reported only the names and whether he had the
impression that the Croatian public was misinformed of the Croatian
delegation's visit to Brussels, Wunenburger said: "I think the whole
story was triggered by an article from Hina".
"I think that the journalist there (...) reported certainly in good
faith from what he heard in Brussels, but I think he reported (...) or
she reported (...) something she did not understand, obviously because
even (after) reading it twice I don't understand what it means.
"It may well be that the responsibility for that is not on the
journalist's side, that what was said by President Prodi, and I was
there, was not clear. That might be the case," he said, adding that he
had read the English translation of the article.
(Hina) vm sb