ZAGREB SUMMIT ZAGREB, Nov 29 (Hina) - The Croatian National Parliament's Committee for Foreign Affairs on Wednesday adopted a report on the recently held Zagreb Summit and assessed as positive the conference organised by the European
Union and five countries within the process of stabilisation and association. The session, led by the Committee chairman, Zdravko Tomac, envisaged three items in the agenda: the Zagreb Summit, the Dayton Agreement and personnel policy in diplomacy. It ended with a decision that the second item be transferred to the next session and the issues of diplomacy be discussed behind closed doors. Most participants of the session requested a Foreign Ministry representative to explain item 3 of the final declaration of the Zagreb Summit, adopted on November 24, which connects individual and regional approach. Item three speaks about the signing of an agreement on regional cooperation through polit
ZAGREB, Nov 29 (Hina) - The Croatian National Parliament's
Committee for Foreign Affairs on Wednesday adopted a report on the
recently held Zagreb Summit and assessed as positive the conference
organised by the European Union and five countries within the
process of stabilisation and association.
The session, led by the Committee chairman, Zdravko Tomac,
envisaged three items in the agenda: the Zagreb Summit, the Dayton
Agreement and personnel policy in diplomacy. It ended with a
decision that the second item be transferred to the next session and
the issues of diplomacy be discussed behind closed doors.
Most participants of the session requested a Foreign Ministry
representative to explain item 3 of the final declaration of the
Zagreb Summit, adopted on November 24, which connects individual
and regional approach.
Item three speaks about the signing of an agreement on regional
cooperation through political dialogue and a regional area of free
trade, through cooperation in legislature and internal affairs for
strengthening the judicial system, fight against organised crime,
corruption and smuggling.
Deputy Foreign Minister Vesna Cvjetkovic-Kurelec, who submitted
the report on the Summit, said the Declaration was an expression of
the political will of five countries and is not a legally binding
document.
Its role, however, is crucial on the path to drawing closer to the
European Union, she said.
The so-called "complementary nature of regional and individual
dimensions of approaching the EU" was accentuated in the speeches
of all heads of delegations, but nowhere was there mention of "the
institutionalisation of regional cooperation," she said.
Mate Granic of the Democratic Centre held the Summit a success, but
held it would have been even more successful had the problem of
succession been accentuated.
As Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica had not replied to any one
expectation of the EU or Croatia (on the war, succession,
cooperation with the international war crimes tribunal in The
Hague), Granic warned caution was necessary.
Most participants in the discussion mentioned the issue of
Montenegro which, according to the Badinter Commission, has the
right to self-determination as do all former states of the former
Yugoslavia.
In this context they said they had been surprised by a statement of
the president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, who said
the time had come for unison, not disassociation, which discretely
sends a message to Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic.
This is "a dangerous precedent", Tomac said, who holds that the
Committee should react and send a message that the peoples in the
region must make decisions for themselves.
The Istrian Democratic Assembly holds that Croatia must clearly
stand by Montenegro's position should Podgorica opt for self-
determination.
Tomac spoke about Croatia's "rough reality" with concern to its
geopolitical position. Croatia has received additional criteria
such as Romania or Bulgaria do not have, and the EU will value it
according to how much it is realising this, according to the EU,
most important task," Tomac said.
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