CROATIAN JOURNALISTS UNION HOLDS ANNUAL CONFERENCE

OPATIJA, Oct 31 (Hina) - The executive committee of the Croatian Union of Journalists (SNH) will take over the powers of its president until the election assembly, scheduled for June 2000, because SNH president Dragutin Lucic has taken over the office of the president of the Croatian Journalists' Association (HND), to which he was elected at HND's session last Friday. This was decided at SNH's 10th annual conference held in the northern Adriatic town of Opatija on Saturday. In the coming period, the union will continue its activities regarding the adoption of a national collective agreement in journalism, which will set the price of journalistic work, which is believed to benefit especially journalists working in small media. The union will also resume talks with the German-Croatian owner of "Europa-press holding" media concern on the status and salaries of journalists and work on the protection of free-lance reporters and the establishment of a journalists' pension fund. The former SNH president Dragutin Lucic said that, as the new president of the Croatian Journalists' Association, he would try to synchronise the activities of the two associations. (hina) rml