ZAGREB, Nov 7 (Hina) - Prime Minister and Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Ivica Racan said on Friday the return of right-wing parties to power in Croatia might threaten the country's European Union membership bid.
ZAGREB, Nov 7 (Hina) - Prime Minister and Social Democratic Party
(SDP) leader Ivica Racan said on Friday the return of right-wing
parties to power in Croatia might threaten the country's European
Union membership bid. #L#
Racan on Friday gave interviews to Voice of America and Reuters news
agency in which he spoke about the country's main home and foreign
policy goals in light of the upcoming parliamentary elections.
The return to power of the right-wing parties gathered around the
Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) might threaten Croatia's ambitions
to join the European Union," Racan told VoA.
"Their professed support for EU entry is not enough," he said,
adding that the HDZ-led opposition "is not offering anything new at
the moment."
The prime minister expressed confidence that next year Zagreb would
win an official candidate status for EU entry, but noted that
Croatia had fewer chances of becoming the 28th member of the EU if
the HDZ returned to power, because the opposition "wanted to solve
some problems through a conflict with the Hague tribunal."
"It is wrong to think the HDZ would cooperate better with the
tribunal. Some potential members of the HDZ-led coalition make it
no secret they support a revision of the cooperation, less
cooperation. That would mean slowing down, if not something more,
our path towards the EU," Racan told Reuters.
The SDP leader insisted that Croatia was cooperating well with the
tribunal and predicted that it would become an official candidate
for EU membership by May next year if his party stayed in power.
Croatian authorities are making every effort in cooperation with
foreign intelligence services to locate fugitive Croatian general
Ante Gotovina so as to remove the last political obstacle to a
positive opinion of the European Commission on Croatia's EU
membership application, Racan said.
Racan again expressed hope the EU would not punish Croatia for its
failure to hand Gotovina over to the Hague tribunal, saying his
government wanted to cooperate but was unable to track down the
runaway general.
(hina) vm sb