SEMINAR HELD ON CONFORMING CRO ADMINISTRATION TO E.U. STANDARDS

( Editorial: --> 2853 ) ZAGREB, Sept 24 (Hina) - Policies instigated by the Croatian Government undeniably lead towards European integration. But the path towards that goal will hinge on the adoption of EU standards across society, assessed on Thursday participants in a Zagreb seminar organised by the Croatian Government's European Integration Office. The seminar entitled "The Institutional Conformation of Public Administration in the Republic of Croatia to the Process of European Integration" is being held on Thursday and Friday in the National University Library, and is the first of its type for employees of Croatian ministries and state offices. Membership in any kind of association brings both rights and responsibilities, recalled the European Commission's envoy to Croatia Per Vinther in his address at the seminar. He said how Croatia could not at the same time say "yes" to Europe and "no" to conditions. Every candidate country must carefully research and harmonise its laws and overall legal instruments to EU regulations, Vinther added. Croatian European Integration Minister Ljerka Mintas-Hodak in her address emphasised that her government's strategic priority was "a gradual transformation of all segments of society so that they could conform to commercial and democratic achievements of the western world". That difficult task is being realised without active support and financial aid from the EU's PHARE assistance programme (in the transmission of knowledge and technology), Mintas-Hodak said. Approaching Europe essentially means the "transfer of a certain amount of sovereignty to the supernational structures of the EU", Deputy Foreign Minister Ivo Sanader said, warning on Croatia's partial resistance and lack of confidence towards the EU. But membership in the EU "also brings benefits" and Croatia has to look up to other countries whose economic development has been boosted by membership (Ireland, Portugal, Finland and in parts Greece), he added. Conditions for Croatia's membership in the EU are being prescribed by Brussels, in accordance with the EU's usual policy towards third countries and not as a strategy reserved only for eastern Europe, Sanader said. On the other hand the EU should critically assess all of Croatia's achievements up to now, Sanader said. Because Croatia "by liberating its occupied territories (in the 1995 military actions "Flash" and "Storm", after which talks on the PHARE assistance programme were frozen) had resolved a complicated military-political situation". These actions paved the way for forging of the Dayton Peace Accords, which were brought about by the international community, lead by the United States, Sanader said. Even though "Croatia owes its current standing to its own strengths, it would be spiteful and wrong to see it as an island", said Croatia's Ambassador to the EU Janko Vranyczany-Dobrinovic in a speech read by his deputy Boris Grigic. The accession process can be "embraced wholeheartedly, but carried out with difficulties", Vranyczany-Dobrinovic warned, recalling that the framework for establishing institutional relations between the EU and Croatia was confirmed at a Council of Ministers meeting on April 29, 1997 when a "signpost" known as a "conditional policy" was passed. Austria, which after four-years of membership is currently presiding over the Union, is prepared to help Croatia on its path to Europe, Austria's Ambassador to Croatia Rudolf Bogner said. The procedure of harmonising to EU standards was neither easy nor short, while Austria from its formal application for accession to its full integration needed eight years, he said. In his address, Germany's Ambassador to Croatia Volker Haak, whose country presides over the EU on January 1 next year, tried to draw parallels between Germany in the 1950s and Croatia today as they had suffered similar dilemmas. It was shown that the best way to unite Germany was through its membership in the European Community, now the EU. The way to democracy was also the way to national recovery, Haak said. The recent debate on whether Germans would give up their national pride - the German mark - and lose a part of their national identity, ended on the delivery of a brave decision: that from January 1, 1999 the EU would introduce the single European currency, the euro. "Sacrifice is needed, but this is the only way for your own interest," Ambassador Haak concluded. (Hina) mbr /mro 242121 MET sep 98