CROATIA'S SAA TO BE RATIFIED IN TWO THIRDS OF EU COUNTRIES BY JULY

ZAGREB, Jan 19 (Hina) - The Association and Stabilisation Agreement (SAA) between Croatia and the European Union should be ratified by two thirds of EU member-countries by the middle of this year, diplomatic sources from said countries told Hina. #L# The French National Assembly ratified the SAA last Thursday. The document is yet to be confirmed by the Senate, the upper house of the French parliament. French parliamentary sources told Hina the Senate could ratify the SAA by the end of March. The SAA between Croatia and the EU has already been ratified by the parliaments of Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Austria, Spain and the Netherlands. Greece has announced that its parliament will ratify the agreement by the end of June. Swedish diplomatic sources said the SAA should be discussed by the Swedish parliament in spring. The date of ratification will be known once the parliament draws up its agenda, which it is expected to do by the end of January. The Belgian government has forwarded Croatia's SAA into parliamentary procedure, but the parliament must first obtain the opinion of the State Council, an institution equivalent to Croatia's Constitutional Court. The Belgian Ambassador to Croatia, Luc Liebaut, told Hina that he expected the SAA to be ratified on the federal level in both parliamentary chambers by May. At the same time, the document will by ratified by the parliaments of the country's five federal units. The ambassador expects the ratification procedure to be completed in the first half of this year. If everything happens as planned, by the end of the year the SAA could be ratified by at least 10 of the 15 EU countries. Both chambers of the Dutch parliament have ratified the SAA, however, the Dutch government decided not to submit ratification documents to the European Commission until the case of retired Croatian general Janko Bobetko is solved. Last October Great Britain postponed the ratification procedure due to the Bobetko case. Croatia signed the SAA in October 2001. The agreement will go into force after it has been ratified by the parliaments of all EU countries, and by the Croatian and European parliaments, which has already been done. Apart from the SAA, Croatia and the EU have also signed a temporary agreement regulating trade-related issues from the SAA, which became effective on the day it was signed. That agreement has made it possible to start implementing the most important segments of the SAA, thus bridging the period between the signing of the SAA and its going into force. (hina) rml