SANADER, TOMCIC EXCHANGE HARSH WORDS IN PARLIAMENT

ZAGREB, April 2 (Hina) - Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) leader Zlatko Tomcic exchanged harsh words and accusations in parliament on Friday during a debate on an HSS interpellation about the government's work on Protocol VII.#L# Tomcic countered Sanader's accusations that the interpellation was "replete with untruths and lies" by labelling them as "manipulation nobody in parliament has ever used yet". "Nobody has dared to speak in such a hypocritical, dirty and utterly artificial manner," Tomcic said. He called Sanader two-faced, saying he had "protected" war veterans but recently sent "an entire regiment" to the Hague war crimes tribunal, that he had "shed tears" when the economic zone in the Adriatic was not proclaimed while his cabinet today refused to protect the ecological and fishing zone from tankers. Referring to the need of reaching a national consensus on issues as significant as Protocol VII, Tomcic called on Sanader to reconsider signing the document on May 1 since, he said, nothing bound him to do so on that date. Darko Milinovic criticised the HSS for bad timing with the interpellation, saying that the slightest government instability could negatively affect the European Commission's opinion on Croatia's European Union membership application, which was expected to be defined soon. Neven Mimica of the Social Democrats criticised the government for bypassing parliament in the Protocol VII negotiations and keeping them under a veil of secrecy. Jozo Rados of Libra applauded Sanader's statement that import quotas would not be raised but said that with such a crucial issue as the protocol, parliament should give its opinion before it was signed. Pero Kovacevic of the Party of Rights said the negotiating platform should be based on the informing of farmers and fishermen because they would bear the brunt of the protocol's effect. (Hina) ha