EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER URGES SAA RATIFICATION WITH CROATIA

ZAGREB, Dec 19 (Hina) - A representative of the Transnational Radical Party in the European Parliament, Olivier Dupuis, on Wednesday called on the European Commission to urge the European Council to come to an immediate decision regarding Croatia's compliance with the criteria from the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), thus putting an end to the Netherlands' and Great Britain's stalling of the SAA ratification.#L# In his letter, which was forwarded to Hina on Friday, Dupuis asked the European Commission a series of questions regarding the ratification of the said agreement between Croatia and the EU. He wondered how it was possible that 13 of the 15 EU member states were finalising the process of the SAA ratification while the United Kingdom and the Netherlands had frozen the process over the case of the Croatian fugitive general Ante Gotovina and insisted that his extradition be a condition for the SAA ratification. "Does the Commission not agree that it should urge the Council to come to an immediate decision regarding Croatia's compliance with the criteria of the SAA, committing the European Union and all its Member States and putting an end to time-wasting tactics?" Dupuis said. The letter is entitled "Croatian Membership of the European Union: Obstructionist Tactics Must Be Unmasked!". Dupois was born in Belgium in 1958. He has been a member of the Radical Party since 1981. Only a year after he joined the party, Dupuis organised a protest in support of freedom and democracy in the southern Adriatic town of Dubrovnik for which he was arrested and expelled from the then Yugoslav federation. In December 1991, together with Radical Party president Marco Pannelli, Dupuis visited Croatian soldiers in a war zone near the eastern city of Osijek, wearing a Croatian Army uniform. He was elected to the European Parliament twice -- in 1996 and 1999. (Hina) it sb