ZAGREB, Sept 18 (Hina) - By the Brussels meeting of the Regional Table, the Pact for Stability in Southeastern Europe was "set in motion", said Vladimir Drobnjak, an assistant to Croatia's Foreign Minister and national co-ordinator of
the Pact.
ZAGREB, Sept 18 (Hina) - By the Brussels meeting of the Regional
Table, the Pact for Stability in Southeastern Europe was "set in
motion", said Vladimir Drobnjak, an assistant to Croatia's Foreign
Minister and national co-ordinator of the Pact.#L#
"The first Regional Table practically marked the setting of the
Stability Pact in motion," said Drobnjak at a news briefing in the
Foreign Ministry on Saturday after he had returned from Brussels a
day before.
The Brussels meeting, held last Thursday, was exclusively of the
working and operational nature and did not, at all, enter the Pact's
political dimension defined by Koeln and Sarajevo documents,
Drobnjak said adding that Thursday's meeting was chaired by the
Pact's coordinator Bodo Hombach.
Hombach made it clear that the chief operational implementation of
the Pact would be a task of Working Tables and therefore it would be
too early after the Regional Table's session to give assessments on
possible operational achievements of the whole Pact, the Croatian
official told reporters.
In Brussels, chairmen of the three working tables were confirmed.
Dutch Max van der Stoel, former Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe high commissioner for national minorities,
was elected chairman of the working table for democratisation and
human rights. Enrico Saccomanni, international affairs director at
the Italian Central Bank, will be the chairman of the second working
table, which will deal with economic revival, development, and
cooperation. Jan Eliasson, state secretary at the Swedish Foreign
Ministry, was elected chairman of the third working table, which
will tackle security issues.
All three chairmen have the two-year term of office, and thus
Coordinator Hombach had accepted Croatia's proposal that there
would be no unlimited mandate of those three chairmen, Drobnjak
said.
Furthermore, the time schedule for sessions of the three working
tables was decided as well. The Italian city of Bari will host the
working table on economy on 8 and 9 October, Oslo will organise the
session of the working table on security on 14 October, while the
third working table on democratisation will take place on 18 and 19
October in Geneva.
First co-chairmen of the three working tables are to be
representatives of countries that host events. As of January 1,
2000, regular six-month rotating cycles of co-chairmanship are to
start so that Hungary will co-chair the working table on
democratisation, Macedonia will co-chair the working table on
economy and Bosnia the table on security. Croatia will be the third
to co-chair the security table as of January 1, 2001, Drobnjak
said.
The working tables should hold at least two meetings yearly and
prompt participants to present a certain number of projects that
must meet basic criteria.
"Each project has to have a reference price, a possible source for
financing and an explanation how much it is compatible with
political and other aims of the Pact," Drobnjak said.
The best assessed projects will be then presented to the co-
ordinating donation process, a kind of donors' conference , backed
by the World Bank and the European Commission, which should be
organised in Italy.
As far as Croatia's proposals for projects are concerned, Zagreb
had given a comprehensive plan (e.g. for roads, Adriatic Oil
Pipeline, the Adriatic motorway) in Sarajevo, Drobnjak reminded
reporters.
Now we are concretising and elaborating certain projects and when
the Government approves them, they might be shown at the first
meeting of the working table in Bari, he added.
The contents, rather than speed of the presentation, of a project
would be a crucial factor in its assessment. It is desirable that a
project may enjoy support from a few countries, like the Adriatic
motorway, he explained.
Commenting that the alternative headquarters of the Pact will be
the Greek town of Salonika, besides Brussels, Drobnjak described it
as proof of the Pact's orientation toward EuroAtlantic
associations as Greece is now the only south-eastern European
country already admitted to both to the NATO and the European
Union.
Commenting on the relations between Croatia and the EU, Drobnjak
said there had been no important steps forward. He pointed to the EU
readiness to resume a dialogue as positive fact.
There is no place for satisfaction in view to the fact that "Task
Force" has not yet been officially set up, and it means that it does
not exist for the Council of Ministers, Drobnjak said commenting a
statement of the Ministerial Council which asked the European
Commission to consult the political forces in Croatia on Task
Force's activities.
The role of the Task Force will be to prepare technical and
contractual relations between the EU and Croatia after relevant
conditions have been met, he added.
Speaking of the South-Eastern European Cooperation Process'
/SEECP) meeting in Bucharest, Drobnjak said it had been marked by
the death of a Greek Deputy Foreign Minister upon his arrival in the
Romanian capital. Therefore, the adoption of two documents has been
postponed for the SEECP ministerial meeting scheduled in a two-
month time in Bucharest again, Drobnjak said.
Croatia is taking part in the SEECP as an observer.
During the Bucharest meeting the Euro-Atlantic orientation was
evident of all countries participating in that body. In addition,
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) was denied for the first
time the right to sit at the table during the session. According to
an official explanation, Yugoslavia is failing to show a minimum
degree of respecting principles on which the entire process is
based, and its seat is remaining temporarily vacant. According to
Drobnjak, this was a political blow to Belgrade, as the SEECP is the
only international initiative in which Yugoslavia could
participate as a full member.
(hina) ms