CROATIAN VICE PREMIER MEETS COUNCIL OF EUROPE OFFICIALS

STRASBOURG, March 9 (Hina) - Croatian Vice Premier Ljerka Mintas- Hodak, who is on a three-day visit to Strasbourg, on Tuesday met representatives of the Council of Europe's Congress of Local and Regional Authorities and the Administration for Legal Issues. The meeting with the secretary of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, Rinaldo Locatelli, and his assistants, also tackled the forthcoming revision of the Croatian law on local government and self-government. The two sides considered the possibility of cooperation in drawing up legal texts and further developing structures of local government and self-government in Croatia in accordance to European standards. Mintas-Hodak also held talks with the director of the Administration for Legal Issues, Guy de Vel. Discussed were a number of conventions and agreements to which the Council of Europe attaches special importance and wishes to motivate its members to sign them so that they could harmonise their legal standards. These documents include various forms of legal cooperation and assistance between member-countries, including the prevention of various kinds of crime, money-laundering and corruption. Croatia should as soon as possible consider the possibility of becoming a signatory to those conventions, it was said at the meeting. Most of those international legal instruments were drawn up in cooperation with the European Union and the acceptance of those standards is one of the preconditions for approaching European integration processes. (hina) rml