ISTANBUL, Nov 18 (Hina) - In Istanbul, Croatia's Prime Minister Zlatko Matesa on Thursday held talks with his Finnish counterpart, Paavo Lipponen, whose country is currently holding the chairmanship of the European Union.
ISTANBUL, Nov 18 (Hina) - In Istanbul, Croatia's Prime Minister
Zlatko Matesa on Thursday held talks with his Finnish counterpart,
Paavo Lipponen, whose country is currently holding the
chairmanship of the European Union.#L#
After the meeting, Matesa told Croatian reporters that Lipponen and
he had concluded that solutions offered by the Croatian election
law were not so bad. "Namely, in our opinion they are not at all bad,
and they do not differ from standards which other countries have,"
Matesa added.
Pointing to differences in stands expressed in a recent Speaking
Note of the EU, Croatia's PM said the entire attention was being now
focused to only one request - the need for the implementation of a
fair and transparent election, along with usual monitoring which
includes multiparty electoral commissions, NGOs, parliaments and
international organisations. All this is "a part of Croatia's
legislation and there is no contentious issue here," he added.
During his talks with the EU chairman Lipponen, Croatia's Prime
Minister reiterated that his country maintains that there are no
reasons not to be included into the PHARE programme. Matesa added
that Croatia was interested in full relations with the EU.
He told reporters that for Croatia it is encouraging that Lipponen
has said that the EU supports the individual approach of each
country within the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe.
(hina) jn ms