VIENNA, April 21 (Hina) - "Croatia is welcome in the EU", "Croatia Drawing Closer to the EU", read headlines of Austria's dailies bringing reports the European Commission's positive avis on Croatia's EU membership application.
VIENNA, April 21 (Hina) - "Croatia is welcome in the EU", "Croatia
Drawing Closer to the EU", read headlines of Austria's dailies
bringing reports the European Commission's positive avis on Croatia's
EU membership application.#L#
Austrian Radio Television (ORF) cited sources close to the European
Commission as saying that Croatia could hope to join the EU and that
negotiation with Croatia would start at the end of this year or by the
beginning of 2005 at the latest. The ORF also said Croatia wanted to
join the EU as full member by 2007.
Commenting on Croatia-EU relations, Der Standard daily wrote that the
European Commission gave Croatia the green light for negotiations on
full EU membership and that Croatia's economic situation today was
much better that that of the ten countries that were to join the EU on
May 1.
(Hina) it