JOHNSON SPEAKS ABOUT ECONOMIC CONDITIONS FOR JOINING EU

DUBROVNIK, July 9 (Hina) - The chairman of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, Lord Russell Johnson, on Friday spoke at a two-day-long seminar titled "From a Country in Transition to the Membership in the European Union", which is being held in the southern Adriatic town of Dubrovnik. Johnson discussed the admission of countries to the European Union. Stressing that fulfilling economic conditions for joining the EU was the hardest part of the admission, Johnson said that the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly believed that the beginning of negotiations on joining the EU would inspire countries-candidates to invest more efforts in the fulfilling of the conditions. The efforts lead to great renunciation in the social field and it is necessary to motivate the authority and the population of all countries to continue and to implement necessary reforms which would help them join the EU, Johnson said. He also spoke of his visit to Montenegro on Thursday, where he held talks with Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic. According to Johnson, the talks were on the Council of Europe's support to democratic changes in Montenegro. The seminar was also participated by the deputy chairman of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, Nikola Obuljen, and the Croatian Justice Minister, Zvonimir Separovic. Separovic said Croatia was not satisfied with the way the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia treated crimes committed in Dubrovnik during the Serb aggression in Croatia. (hina) it