TOMCIC SAYS CROATIA ENJOYS BRITAIN'S SUPPORT ON ITS PATH TO EU

LONDON, July 7 (Hina) - Great Britain fully supports Croatia's bids to join the EU, Croatian Parliament President Zlatko Tomcic said in London Monday. #L# Tomcic is on a working visit to Great Britain where he has met a number of British state officials. "This visit shows (Britain's) full understanding of and support to Croatia on its path to the EU," Tomcic said after talks with British Secretary for Europe Dennis MacShane. "We were told there were some open issues that needed to be solved," Tomcic said. MacShane expressed satisfaction with the favourable development of bilateral relations, adding that the two countries last year marked a nine percent trade increase. Some 120,000 British tourists visited Croatia last year, he said. Secretary MacShane said he was confident Croatia was heading forward towards its goal -- membership of the European Union. There are some problems that Croatia needs to overcome, but the two countries' relations are developing favourably, he said. The Croatian parliament head also held talks with the British minister in charge of rural affairs, Alun Michael, the vice- president of the opposition's Conservative Party and shadow foreign secretary, Michael Ancram, Karen Pierce of the Foreign Office, in charge of eastern Adriatic, and his host, the president of the Parliament's lower house, Michael Martin. All talks focused on Croatia's joining the EU and NATO, the ratification of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) and the cancellation of the visa regime between the two countries, said Tomcic. Last October the British parliament froze the process of the SAA ratification because of the Bobetko case. Tomcic said Great Britain planned to reconsider its decision about the visa regime with Croatia very soon. The Croatian parliament president will travel to Cardiff on Tuesday to meet his Welsh counterpart Dafydd Elis-Thomas. (Hina) it