Croatian MP Neven Mimica, who is one of the Croatian members of the commission, told Hina that during their two-day visit to Croatia the commission's members talked with President Stjepan Mesic and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, representatives of some parliamentary parties and minority representatives, representatives of nongovernmental organisations, the media, and business people.
Mimica said that Croatia was not perceived as a country which should be given any recommendations regarding the strengthening of democracy and the rule of law, but as a country which may give a crucial contribution to the stabilisation of the entire region.
The purpose of the Commission, which convened for the first time in April and which has made three study tours of the region since, is to strengthen the vision of integration of South-East Europe with the European Union and international structures by underlining the achieved progress and giving recommendations to the governments in the region and the international community.
"We want to help those who make decisions, as well as societies in South-East Europe," the Commission's chairman and former Italian prime minister, Giuliano Amato, said.
The report on the Balkans will be sent to the governments in the region, the US administration and the leadership of the European Commission, namely all those who will be dealing with the solution of outstanding status issues in the Balkans, including the status of Kosovo, to be dealt with in mid-2005, and the issue of revision of the Dayton agreement in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mimica said.
The Commission includes former German and Macedonian presidents Richard von Weizsaecker and Kiro Gligorov respectively. Some of the better known members are former prime ministers Carl Bildt of Sweden, Jean-Luc Dehaene of Belgium, Ilir Meta of Albania and Zlatko Lagumdzija of Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana and Serbia and Montenegro's former foreign minister Goran Svilanovic. Slovenia is represented by current European Commissioner Janez Potocnik.
The Commission was founded at the proposal of and is financed by the German Robert Bosch foundation and the foundation of (Belgian) King Baudouin, as well as by the US foundations German Marshall and Charles Steward Mott.