The invitation is included in an amendment proposed by Swoboda, the European Parliament's rapporteur on Croatia.
The deadline for submitting amendments to the draft EP resolution was 6 pm today. The amendments will be discussed on April 25, with voting scheduled for the next day.
The EP will discuss the draft resolution adopted by the Committee on Foreign Affairs on March 27 and the amendments submitted until today. The Committee's progress report on Croatia was very positive, but was somewhat overshadowed by the fact that some amendments to it, mentioning the possibility of arbitration in case Croatia and Slovenia failed to settle their border issue bilaterally, were rejected.
Bernd Posselt, a German member of the EP of the European People's Party and European Democrats (EPP-ED) group, told the Croatian press earlier today that the Croatian-Slovene outstanding border issue could not be an obstacle to Croatia's EU membership.
I think the resolution will ask both parties to find a bilateral solution to that issue before Slovenia assumes the EU presidency on January 1, 2008, but it should be made clear that we accepted Slovenia as a member before it had resolved its border problem with Croatia and so it has no right to block Croatia, Posselt said.
He said that his group would propose seven amendments to improve some parts of the text. The EPP would request deleting a part of the text expressing concern about efforts by the Croatian government to become "amicus curiae" (a friend of court) in the trial of three Croatian army generals before the Hague war crimes tribunal.
I don't accept the part of the report saying that Croatia and its government should be criticised for trying to become "amicus curiae" in the Gotovina case. That's part of normal procedure before the tribunal and it's not even topical now. I think we should delete that part, because it's not fair and has nothing to do with Croatia's membership in the EU or with the progress report. It's just a kind of propaganda, Posselt said, adding added that should that part remain in the text of the resolution he would make a statement on behalf of the EPP rejecting it.
The report mentioned 2009 as the year in which the European Parliament might approve Croatia's accession to the bloc.
Croatia should do all it can to implement the necessary reforms with a view to completing the negotiations in time, so that the European Parliament could give its consent before the next European parliamentary elections in June 2009, the report said.