COUNCIL OF EUROPE MONITORS TO VISIT CROATIA IN NOVEMBER

( Editorial: --> 1709 ) STRASBOURG, Sept 20 (Hina) - Council of Europe monitors will visit Croatia in November to inspect into how Croatia is fulfilling the general and special commitments it accepted at the time of its admission to the Council of Europe. This was stated by Jakob Count Eltz Vukovarski, a member of the Croatian delegation in the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. The Croatian delegation arrived in Strasbourg on Sunday for the Assembly's autumn session which will be taking place from September 21 to 25. The Council of Europe monitors Jan Sigel and Jerzi Jaskernija will visit Croatia from November 10 to 13, Eltz said adding this decision was made by the Monitoring Committee in Paris at the end of August. The two monitors are to establish whether Croatia respects the basic principles of the Council of Europe and whether Zagreb is fulfilling the commitments which concern, among other things, media freedom and the election law. According to a previously adopted programme, the monitors were to visit Croatia at the beginning of October and meet with high state officials and representatives of the media and non-government organisations. The new programme of the visit will probably be similar to the old one, but it still has not been confirmed, Eltz said. The programme will be discussed at next week's meeting of the Monitoring Committee. Croatian representatives in the Monitoring Committee are Count Eltz Vukovarski and Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee President Zarko Domljan. The Monitoring Committee was founded in April 1997 with the aim of helping young democracies in the transition from totalitarian Communist regimes into pluralistic democracy. The Committee also has the power to sanction those countries which fail to fulfil their commitments. (hina) rml 201334 MET sep 98