ZAGREB, April 15 (Hina) - Croatian Parliament President Vladimir Seks has said that he is confident of a positive opinion of the European Commission about Croatia's EU membership application and that there will be no surprises in the
report of the chief prosecutor of the UN war crimes tribunal, Carla del Ponte.
ZAGREB, April 15 (Hina) - Croatian Parliament President Vladimir Seks
has said that he is confident of a positive opinion of the European
Commission about Croatia's EU membership application and that there
will be no surprises in the report of the chief prosecutor of the UN
war crimes tribunal, Carla del Ponte.#L#
Addressing reporters on Thursday, Seks said he had information that
del Ponte had given a positive opinion about Croatia's cooperation
with the tribunal.
If Croatia's cooperation is judged as good, it means that the chief
prosecutor is implicitly certain that her objection is no longer valid
about the Croatian government not doing enough to arrest General Ante
Gotovina, Seks said.
Asked about the position of Great Britain, Seks said that it probably
would not affect the avis, but that a lot of diplomatic and political
effort would have to be invested to make Britain change its opinion
when the EU Council of Ministers decides about granting Croatia
candidate status and about the start of negotiations on EU
membership.
I believe that the avis is certain, but candidate status will require
efforts to remove the main objection raised by Great Britain, Seks
said.
Great Britain is making the ratification of Croatia's Stabilisation
and Association Agreement with the EU conditional on Gotovina's arrest
and transfer to the UN tribunal.
Seks hopes that by the time the EU Council of Ministers decides about
Croatia's candidate status and the start of membership negotiations
Croatia will manage to convince Britain that it cannot do something
that is beyond its capability.
Seks said the avis was not the reason why the parliament would not
discuss unacceptable allegations from Hague tribunal indictments
against generals Mladen Markac and Ivan Cermak before the end of
April.
The reason for that is the need to organise a parliamentary debate in
such a way so that it does not affect requests by the defence counsel
for Markac's and Cermak's provisional release, he said.
(Hina) rml sb