SHUESSEL SAYS AUSTRIA FOR CROATIA'S ACCELERATED PATH TO EU

VIENNA, Feb 19 (Hina) - Austria supports Croatia on its path towards the European Union and hopes Croatia will join the Union as soon as possible, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Shuessel said in Vienna on Thursday after talks with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader.#L# "Austria's is the first country to have ratified Croatia's Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU. We support all Croatia's ambitions and chances for full membership of the European Union, but Croatia must still meet some conditions in order to join the EU as soon as possible," Schuessel said. Prime Minister Sanader said Croatia would do its part of the job. "We are an ambitious government and an ambitious country that would like to see itself in the EU in the second enlargement wave in 2007/08. We, however, will not set any conditions. We would like to say that Croatia will be ready in 2007 and then it will be up to the EU to make the political decision whether it accepts Croatia or not," Sanader said. Schuessel positively assessed the first signals of the new Croatian government -- its clear orientation towards meeting the Copenhagen criteria and cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague -- and added that this was a clear path to Europe. Sanader confirmed Croatia's readiness to meet all Copenhagen and political criteria set before it. The Croatian PM expressed gratitude to Schuessel for Austria's always being there when Croatian needed it. "Schuessel always understood the situation Croatia was in in the 1990s, just as he now understands our ambition to join the EU as soon as possible," Sanader said. He also expressed satisfaction with the two countries' bilateral relations and stressed that Austria was one of the biggest and also one of the first foreign investors in Croatia. (Hina) it sb