ZAGREB, Aug 27 (Hina) - The leader of the Democratic Centre (DC) party, Mate Granic, said on Tuesday he strongly supported the agreement on local border traffic Croatia and Slovenia signed in 1997 at the time he held the office of
Croatia's foreign minister.
ZAGREB, Aug 27 (Hina) - The leader of the Democratic Centre (DC)
party, Mate Granic, said on Tuesday he strongly supported the
agreement on local border traffic Croatia and Slovenia signed in
1997 at the time he held the office of Croatia's foreign minister.
#L#
Granic made the statement to Hina commenting on today's statement
by Prime Minister Ivica Racan, who, speaking about requests to
cancel an initialled agreement on the border with Slovenia, said
that "Mate Granic should perhaps request that the agreement he
signed be revoked. We cannot back out of that agreement and yet it
allows Slovene fisherman to fish in the waters virtually as far as
Vrsar."
The DC leader believes that the agreement on local border traffic is
one of the most important agreements signed by the two countries and
that it significantly facilitates the life of several hundred
thousand people living in the border area.
The agreement was signed in the European spirit and Croatia will
benefit from it significantly, Granic said. He recalled that the
Croatian parliament had unanimously ratified the agreement upon
its signing, which he said meant that MP Racan had voted for it as
well and that Croatian fishermen had no objections to it either. The
agreement was prepared by excellent experts, including those on
international law, fishing and tourism, he said.
"I strongly support the Agreement on Local Border Traffic and
believe that the basic problem is the inability of Prime Minister
Racan and his government to solve, through talks with Savudrija
fishermen, who are reasonable people, the problem of compensation
for 50 tonnes of fish they catch annually, which they have estimated
at 500,000 euros," Granic said.
The DC leader believes that Prime Minister Racan should resign
immediately if he does not know how to solve the problem, instead of
provoking new problems on the domestic and international political
scene.
According to Granic, the DC will continue collecting signatures
supporting the cancellation of the initialled border agreement
until the Croatian government, in line with the same procedure as
applied during the initialling, backs out of the agreement. If that
does not happen, he says, the agreement will be a millstone round
Croatia's neck in future international arbitration, and it could be
detrimental to the country's interests.
(hina) rml sb