ZAGREB, April 5 (Hina) - After he completes his official visit to Portugal on Monday, Croatian President Stjepan Mesic on Tuesday leaves for Paris, where he will meet his French counterpart Jacques Chirac, who at his previous meetings
with Mesic expressed support for Croatia's integration into the European Union and NATO.
ZAGREB, April 5 (Hina) - After he completes his official visit to
Portugal on Monday, Croatian President Stjepan Mesic on Tuesday leaves
for Paris, where he will meet his French counterpart Jacques Chirac,
who at his previous meetings with Mesic expressed support for
Croatia's integration into the European Union and NATO.#L#
On Tuesday evening, Mesic is expected to meet the president of the
European Convention, Valery Giscard d'Estaing. On Wednesday he will
meet the president of the French National Assembly, Jean Louis Debre,
and attend the opening of the exhibition "Renaissance in Croatia" in a
museum near Paris.
Since Mesic's official visit to France in the spring 2000, the Zagreb
summit in 2001, which was co-organised by France as the EU chair at
the time, and Chirac's visit to Zagreb the same year, as well as
numerous international meetings, the two statesman have regularly
stressed good relations and a high level of understanding between the
two countries.
France was among the first ten EU countries to ratify Croatia's
Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU.
Croatia's integration into the EU was supported three weeks ago by
French and German political leaders after a meeting in Paris. "With
regard to Croatia, we have given a positive opinion in principle in
anticipation of the European Commission's report," Chirac and German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told reporters on March 16, adding that
this was discussed in the context of EU enlargement.
Paris criticised Zagreb in early February 2003, when the Croatian
government, as a member of the Vilnius Group, signed a letter of
support to the United States' position on Iraq. President Mesic
discussed this issue at his meeting with Chirac in Paris, stating that
Croatia was a member of the anti-terrorist coalition, but that it
believed that every operation had to be backed by the United Nations.
At the time of preparations for the US-British invasion of Iraq,
France, Germany and Russia strongly opposed any armed intervention
which would be carried out without the UN's approval.
(Hina) rml