A BRIEF LOOK AT CROATIAN PRESS ON THURSDAY

ZAGREB, Feb 22 (Hina) - Today's VJESNIK devotes half the front page to Premier Valentic's visit to Bavaria. "Croatia wants to speed up its development, with the participation of foreign capital - particularly Bavarian and German capital," Valentic said. A comment piece by Nenad Ivankovic, headlined "The West Needs Some Kind of Peace," discusses the latest Contact Group peace initiative. "Serbian President Milosevic refused the initiative because he is hoping to get bigger and more favourable concessions from the West," Ivankovic argues. The paper details a report by UN Special Rapporteur, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, on the media situation in Croatia. "Two of the four daily newspapers of national importance, Vjesnik and Vecernji List, are in part State-owned, and the two others, SLobodna Dalmacija and Glas Slavonije, are close to the ruling party, having been privatised by persons known to be sympathetic to the HDZ. The only daily with signiticant political distance from the HDZ is Novi List in Rijeka. Although close to the Government, it may be noted that Vjesnik, in particular, has reportedly shown greater independence in its recent editorial viewpoints," VJESNIK highlighted. VECERNJI LIST also covers Premier Valentic's visit to Bavaria, where he met prominent bankers and representatives of the most important firms in the region, such as Siemens, BMW and Audi. "A country that is implementing a radical economic reform, making efforts to maintain the lowest possible inflation and has a billion-dollar annual growth of foreign currency reserves is not likely to seek war," Valentic said. The paper also reports that rebel Serbs in Croatia and Bosnian Serbs together formed a joint body they called "supreme defence council." (hina) mm as 231134 MET feb 95