CEI MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE IN OHRID ENDS

OHRID, June 26 (Hina) - The foreign ministers of the Central European Initiative (CEI) applauded the progress the seven CEI member-countries achieved in negotiations on admission to the European Union, and stressed the need for intensifying cooperation, especially in the fight against global terrorism, said a final document adopted at the end of a CEI ministerial conference in Ohrid on Wednesday. #L# Negotiations on the admission of candidate countries should soon be completed, read the document, signed by representatives of 17 CEI member-countries. There are seven candidates for the next round of EU's expansion: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The CEI is satisfied that there are no more conflicts in the region. "We are especially satisfied with the fact that countries in the region have been solving conflicts in a non-violent way," Macedonian Foreign Minister Slobodan Casule said after the conference. Cooperation within the CEI is useful for Croatia's efforts to join Euro-Atlantic associations, Croatian Foreign Minister Tonino Picula told reporters. Picula said the CEI was "an excellent framework for the fight against people, weapons and drugs smuggling, so the CEI has a future even after the next round of expansion of the EU". The CEI is the oldest and biggest organisation in the region, established as a form of multilateral cooperation in political, economic, transport, ecological and other important issues which mostly exceed the abilities of individual states. CEI member countries are: Austria, Albania, Belorussia, Bosnia- Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Moldavia, Poland, Rumania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia. The association grew out of a group of five countries established in 1990, which consisted of Austria, Italy, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. Poland joined the group in July 1991, and since Croatia's and Slovenia's admission as guests in November 1991, the group has been functioning under the name Central European Initiative. (hina) lml sb