CROATIA WITHIN EU BY 2005 - OPTIMISTIC, NOT IMPOSSIBLE - SAYS MESIC

BUDAPEST, Oct 18 (Hina) - Croatia's access to the European Union as a full-right member by 2005 is a very optimistic announcement but can be realised, President Stipe Mesic said in Budapest on Wednesday. This was his comment, at urging from members of the press, on a statement he made to Hungarian daily Nepszabadosag to the effect that he hoped Croatia would become a EU member during his mandate. "That is very optimistic, but I think that because we were somewhat behind schedule, we shall now speed things up a lot," Mesic said, adding his estimate was based also on the support he expected from EU countries. He confirmed an information published in a Croatian weekly today that he had forwarded to the prime minister and parliamentary speaker a letter in connection with amendments to the Constitution. Mesic said that after a parliamentary committee debated its draft of the amendments which he did not think "fully respected our previous agreements, it was logical that I should express to the parliamentary speaker and prime minister my vision of the constitutional amendments." If the two officials think his suggestions are good, they may incorporate them in the draft, said Mesic. Asked about the appointments of new people to the positions of generals he recently retired, the Croatian president said he had received a proposal for the appointments from the Ministry of Defence on Tuesday evening, before departing for Hungary, that he had not yet decided, but that the matter would be settled soon. Mesic retired seven generals after they signed an open letter in which, alongside another five, they accused the incumbent authorities of having a negative attitude towards the Homeland Defence War, Croatia's early 1990s war of independence from the former Yugoslav federation. (hina) ha jn