DEFENCE MINISTER DRAWS UP PLAN FOR MINISTRY DEVELOPMENT

ZAGREB, March 3 (Hina) - The new development plan of reorganisation of the Croatian Defence Ministry and Croatian Armed Forces will include a restructuring of personnel and rationalising of expenses, shortening the conscription period, decreasing the number of professional soldiers and brigades, and lessening the obligatory, active and civilian components of the Ministry and Armed Forces. The plan should be drafted by June 30, and implemented by the end of the year 2003 in seven half-year periods, Defence Minister Jozo Rados told a news conference in Zagreb Friday. Rados said the tendency of the plan must be to analyse the geopolitical position of Croatia and its national security, with a formulation of the military doctrine. The basic frames for restructuring the Defence Ministry and the Armed Forces will be a decrease in military sectors from the existing eight to three or four, reducing the number of guard brigades to a quarter or a third of their numbers, and reducing the period of conscription to four or six months, with a proportional decrease of the number of drafted soldiers. Rados stressed the plan was intended to create a smaller, well- organised and highly expert Defence Ministry, and a smaller, well- equipped and organised Armed Force. He said it was necessary for the Ministry to abandon war-condition structures and assume peace-time structures, and thus become a formal part of the international security system. The civilian structure of the Defence Ministry will be based on a firm civilian control by the parliament and Government, which will according to Rados, be realised in the following several weeks. He added the process of depolitisation of the military will be initiated, so officials of political parties, apart from the Minister and his deputies, will not be able to perform duties in the Defence Ministry. (hina) lml mm