ZAGREB, March 31 (Hina) - The European Commission (EC) is not considering the possibility of postponing the publication of its opinion on Croatia's EU membership application, the so-called avis, the chief of the EC Delegation in
Zagreb, Jacques Wunenburger, said on Wednesday.
ZAGREB, March 31 (Hina) - The European Commission (EC) is not
considering the possibility of postponing the publication of its
opinion on Croatia's EU membership application, the so-called avis,
the chief of the EC Delegation in Zagreb, Jacques Wunenburger, said on
Wednesday.#L#
Wunenburger refuted a piece in today's Jutarnji list based on an
interview with him which quoted him as saying the EC might postpone
the publication of the avis until it determined Croatia had made
headway in political issues, notably cooperation with the war crimes
tribunal in The Hague, because it wanted to have grounds for a
positive avis.
That is not true, he said at a presentation of the EC Delegation's
Croatian language web page. I was surprised by the headline, which is
unfair as it does not reflect the essence of the interview. Nothing
has changed in the EC's position and we still intend to issue the avis
this spring, he added without being more specific as to the date other
than saying that spring lasts until June.
Wunenburger went on to say the EC was nevertheless willing to wait a
few days or a couple of weeks if it could be expected that at that
time the Hague tribunal would give its assessment of the level of
Croatia's cooperation.
If it's a matter of days, a week or two in which we can expect a
report on cooperation, we will certainly wait, he said.
The EC will not evaluate Croatia's cooperation with the Hague tribunal
by itself nor does it have the authority to interfere in the
tribunal's work, but it will rely on the tribunal's assessment of the
cooperation, Wunenburger said, adding he expected the assessment to be
made as soon as possible.
If the tribunal's assessment stays the same the EC will publish an
avis reflecting the current state of affairs, he said. Given chief
prosecutor Carla del Ponte's repeated statements that she was not
entirely satisfied with the cooperation, if the avis were published
today, it would be negative, he added.
Also present at the presentation was Croatian European Integration
Minister Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, who said she expected the avis to
be published "in the second half of April or shortly after that".
"We expect the avis to be positive and to provide a good basis on
which the European Council will grant (Croatia) candidate status," she
said.
(Hina) ha sb