NEWS AGENCIES REPORT ON CROATIA'S APPLICATION FOR EU MEMBERSHIP

ZAGREB, Feb 21 (Hina) - Leading international news agencies on Friday reported about Croatia's submitting an application for membership in the European Union, accentuating that Croatia hoped that negotiations on accession would be completed in 2006 and that it would join the organisation in 2007. #L# Reuters reports that this is Croatia's most important step on the path of its transformation from a war-struck nationalist Balkan country to a western-type democracy. The agency adds that Croatia is a country which remained isolated during the nationalist rule of its late president, Franjo Tudjman, and is now hoping to join the second wave of EU's expansion along with Bulgaria and Rumania in 2007. It is estimated that the organisation's answer will probably not arrive before parliamentary elections, which should take place by April 2004, and that the defeat of the reformist coalition currently in power by the populist and conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) could represent a blow to the country's integration efforts. Germany's DPA agency reported the results of opinion polls which show that most Croatians opt for EU membership, and cites analysts who claim that Croatia's joining the organisation was more probable between the years 2008 and 2012. France Presse says that since the reformist government came to power after ten years of a nationalist rule Croatia has been trying to compensate for the tardiness in the adoption of European criteria so it could be ready to integrate with the EU during the 2007 wave of expansion. Of official reactions, only one came, from the representative of Bavaria's Christian Democrats (CSU) in the European parliament, Bernd Posselt, who said that "this central European country is at least as equally mature for accession as other, now official, candidates". He added that Croatia could become a full member of the Union as soon as 2006 or 2007. (hina) lml sb