EC OFFICIAL SAYS CROATIA IS APPROACHING EU IN RECORD TIME

BRUSSELS, Oct 3 (Hina) - Croatia has thus far completed its stages in the rapprochement with the European Union in record time, and the process, until Croatia becomes a full-right member, will continue to depend mostly on Croatia itself, the European Commission's desk officer for Croatia, Rosamaria Gili, said on Wednesday. Gili made this statement at a briefing with the reporters of every major Croatian press and electronic medium who are staying in Brussels Wednesday through Saturday to get acquainted with the work of the EU and NATO. Croatia is now in the third stage of rapprochement with the EU, having carried out the first two in a record time of 16 months, Gili said. She reminded the first stage was liberalisation of trade, and the second access to the CARDS programme. The third is the signing of a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA). Gili reminded the SAA was initialled during last November's Zagreb Summit, and confirmed it would be signed on Oct. 29. This will be followed by a longer period of ratification during which the Agreement has to be ratified by the Croatian parliament as well as the parliaments of all EU members. This is why an interim agreement, which includes certain parts of the SAA, will come into force on 1 January 2002. Gili confirmed the EU did not advocate regional integration in any way but regional cooperation. Every country will be evaluated exclusively by its own achievements, she said. The official said a huge amount of work awaited Croatia upon the signing of the SAA as the harmonisation of legal standards alone required the translation of 80,000 pages of text. In this, the EU will help Croatia as much as it can, she added. (hina) ha