PRESIDENT EXPECTS PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS WILL BE HELD NEXT SPRING

ZAGREB, June 25 (Hina) - President Stjepan Mesic said on Wednesday he was certain Croatia would join the European Union in 2007, and that he expected the next parliamentary election would be held early next year. #L# "Croatia has a defined path, the capability and the strength to meet all conditions and be ready as early as 2006 to join the EU and be admitted in 2007," Mesic said in an interview with national television on the occasion of Statehood Day. "I am an optimist because everything depends on us," the President said, adding Croatia had made great steps since signing the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU. Parliament is working on adjusting legislation to EU standards and only a few political issues remain, he said, adding the law on ethnic minorities now had to be applied. Speaking about economic criteria required for EU entry, Mesic said Croatia had a growth rate of 5.2 percent and US$5,800 per capita income. He said unemployment remained a major problem that would be dealt with also with the building of the infrastructure which would give new impetus to the economy. Asked about Ante Gotovina, a fugitive indictee of the Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Mesic reiterated he had not met with the general. The situation has changed in the wake of Gotovina's recent interview with Nacional because he told the weekly he recognises the Hague tribunal and Croatia's institutions and that in the past he had been prohibited from talking to Hague investigators, said the President. Asked about the extent of his current engagement in the Gotovina case and had he not become Gotovina's attorney, Mesic said he was only asking the Hague tribunal to enable Gotovina to be interviewed. Mesic said his involvement ended at that. Asked had it not been naive to expect that the prosecutor's office would change Gotovina's status from indictee to suspect, the President said: "Chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte can change the indictment or not, but she can hear him out before (Gotovina) answers the tribunal's questions. Gotovina would get a chance to say everything he has to say and present all the evidence." Mesic said he would receive Gotovina as a retired general if he requested so. Asked would Gotovina then be arrested, the President said that would be unnecessary because he would no longer be a fugitive. "I am calling on General Gotovina to make himself available to Croatian bodies," Mesic said, adding incumbent authorities were not liable in any way in connection with the Gotovina case. Asked which coalition would be his favourite at the next election, the President said he did not wish to discuss that in concrete terms. "I will back those who are pro-European, who respect civil rights, who advocate solving unemployment and activating all of Croatia's potentials," Mesic said. He added that in case the Croatian Democratic Union won the election, cohabitation would not constitute a crisis. Mesic said he expected the parliamentary vote would be held next spring. Commenting on data that 50 percent of Croatians did not know Statehood Day was marked on June 25, the President said parliament's decision on the changed data had not been sufficiently explained in the media. It is logical that Statehood Day should be celebrated on the day parliament passed the decision and the declaration that Croatia was leaving the Yugoslav federation to become an independent, sovereign country, Mesic said, accepting the suggestion that in the future, representatives of disabled persons' organisations and various NGOs, among others, should also be invited to Statehood Day receptions. The President further said that over the next five years Croatia should undergo reindustrialisation at a higher technological level than the one it was at before it was destroyed by a wrong privatisation model. He vowed much more would be done by next Statehood Day and that citizens would feel it. (hina) ha sb