CEI SUMMIT IN ZAGREB IS MOST IMPORTANT CONFERENCE IN CROATIA SO FAR

ZAGREB, Nov 11 (Hina) - The Central European initiative (CEI) summit taking place in Zagreb on November 20 and 21 will be the most important international conference held in Croatia to date. Prime ministers and foreign ministers of the 16 CEI member- countries will tackle the challenges of regional stability in south-eastern Europe, relations with the European Union and the consolidation of economic relations among members. "This will be the most important international conference held in Croatia, and Croatia has great expectations of it," a Croatian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zeljko Trkanjec, told reporters on Wednesday. Most of the countries are expected to be represented at the highest level, including Austrian Chancellor Victor Klima and Italian Premier Massimo D'Alema. Croatia is chairing CEI for a year, and has tried to utilise its mandate to strengthen the role of the CEI in areas of security, economic relations and connections with the EU. By initiating new forms of the Initiative's activities, Croatia has also tried to consolidate its international position. This meeting in Zagreb will be the crown of Croatia's endeavours. At the summit, the CEI will make its first step in intensifying its relations with the EU in which it is very interested, due to the fact that several member-countries are already negotiating their access to this organisation, representing the strategic foreign policy objective of most of the CEI countries. Representatives of the CEI Troika, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and the Czech Republic, will meet the chairman of the European Commission, Austrian Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schuessell, and a representative of the European Commission. This meeting should mark the beginning of more significant relations between the two organisations. During Croatia's mandate as chair of the CEI, the Initiative's Troika had already had a successful mission in the assessment of the situation on the Albanian-Yugoslav border, the results of which were useful to both the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations. The summit in Zagreb will pay particular attention to the implementation of the peace agreement in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the situation in Albania and Kosovo, and as a regional initiative will continue to contribute to the establishment of Europe's security architecture, Trkanjec said. (hina) lml /sp