PARLIAMENT SPEAKER: CROATIA WANTS ACCELERATED APPROACH TO EU

BUDAPEST, Nov 27 (Hina) - Croatia wants an accelerated approach to the European Union. In order to give an example to EU countries, it asked Italy to ratify the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) which Croatia recently signed with the EU, parliament speaker Zlatko Tomcic said in Budapest on Tuesday after meeting counterparts from the countries making up the quadrilateral initiative (Croatia, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia). "We want an accelerated approach to the EU, and the negative aspects of the past to have the least possible impact on the association. We also wish to shorten deadlines, wherein the experiences of the three countries, as well as Italy's concrete support, will be valuable", Tomcic said. He urged his Italian counterpart Pier Ferdinando Casini to have the Italian parliament ratify the SAA between Croatia and the EU as soon as possible. Casini said Italy wanted to overcome the problems with Croatia stemming from the past and support Zagreb on its path to Brussels. Italy also advocates a different pace of EU expansion, particularly when it comes to countries like Hungary, which Casini estimates is ready for joining. Italy supports the EU expansion and wants new countries to take part in the elections for the European parliament in 2004, Casini said. Hungarian parliament speaker Janos Ader expressed satisfaction that Croatia had joined the Hungary-Italy-Slovenia trilateral initiative, and that Tomcic was participating in the first parliamentary meeting of the new, quadrilateral initiative. He also applauded the fact that Croatia had officially confirmed its intention to join the EU by signing the SAA. Croatia will host the next meeting of the initiative in May 2002. (hina) np sb