CROATIA HAS GREATLY CONTRIBUTED TO RECONCILIATION - EPP CHAIRMAN

VIENNA, March 24 (Hina) - Croatia's Ivo Sanader Cabinet has greatly contributed to the process of reconciliation and the European People's Party (EPP) highly appreciates this, EPP chairman Hans-Gert Poetering said in Vienna on Thursday.#L# It should therefore not be surprising that Sanader's policy and efforts in connection with reconciliation, as well as Croatia's road to the European Union, are viewed with great sympathy, Poetering told reporters after the EPP Study Days, a meeting which pooled representatives of Europe's Christian Democrat and Conservative parties, including Sanader, Croatia's prime minister and leader of the Croatian Democratic Union. Poetering said the EPP would welcome the start of negotiations between Croatia and the EU. Sanader said at the news conference the Croatian government was trying to meet the EU's criteria not because of the EU but because it was Croatia's future. The head of the People's Party's Austrian delegation in the European Parliament, Ursula Stenzel, told reporters she did not understand why the EU was more demanding of Croatia than of Turkey. She extended her full support to Croatia on its road to the EU. (Hina) ha