MATESA AND GRANIC HOLD TALKS WITH THEIR COUNTERPARTS AT CEI SUMMIT

PRAGUE, Nov 6 (Hina) - Croatia's Premier Zlatko Matesa on Saturday held talks with his Slovenian, Bulgarian, Polish and Macedonian counterparts on the fringes of the CEI two-day summit in Prague. Matesa and Foreign Minister Mate Granic represented Croatia at this conference of the Central European Initiative (CEI) in the Czech capital. On Saturday Matesa and Slovenian Premier Janez Drnovsek discussed the implementation of the recently signed property relations agreement between Croatia and Slovenia. The two premiers also considered agreements on the double tax avoidance and cooperation in tourism which should be soon concluded by Zagreb and Ljubljana. Matesa told Croatian reporters that these two treaties might be signed at the beginning of December. Matesa and Bulgarian Premier Ivan Kostov talked about the cooperation between Croatia and Bulgaria in the implementation of the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe. The two officials also considered political and economic damage done to nearby countries during the Kosovo crisis. The talks between Croatian Prime Minister and Poland's Vice Premier Leszek Balcerowicz revolved around a possibility of implementing a part of the free trade agreement, which refers to the industrial products and which has already been initialled. Matesa and his Macedonian counterpart Ljubce Georgievksi talked about the situation in Kosovo and political and economic consequences of the Kosovo crisis. During the two-day summit Croatian Foreign Minister Granic met Wolfgang Schussel the foreign minister of Austria, Boris Frlec who is the foreign Minister of Slovenia, Jan Kavan of Czech Republic, Jadranko Prlic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Nicolae Tabacarua of Moldova. After the meetings Granic told Croatian reporters that he and his counterparts had discussed the future of the CEI, the Stability Pact and the upcoming election in Croatia. According to Granic, those talks showed that the interest was revived in the economic cooperation between CEI member-countries. Commenting on the Stability Pact he said none of CEI member-states would like that the Pact assume elements of regional integration and in this sense they had rejected an idea about the customs union recently mentioned by the new European Commission's President Romano Prodi. Concerning the parliamentary election, Granic assured his interlocutors that the Croatian Governments would organise a free and fair election and the conduct of election results in compliance with democratic standards. He added that already 200,000 Croatian Serbs had received the Croatian citizenship certificates (domovnica) describing the European Union demand, expressed in its Speaking note, that Serbs be able to cast ballots even if they had no citizenship certificate as unacceptable. (hina) ms