ZAGREB, March 31 (Hina) - The European Commission's opinion of Croatia's application for EU membership (the so-called avis) will be positive despite the unsolved case of runaway general Ante Gotovina and problems with the refugee
return at the local level, Vecernji List daily of Thursday quoted an anonymous diplomatic source from the EU as saying.
ZAGREB, March 31 (Hina) - The European Commission's opinion of
Croatia's application for EU membership (the so-called avis) will be
positive despite the unsolved case of runaway general Ante Gotovina
and problems with the refugee return at the local level, Vecernji List
daily of Thursday quoted an anonymous diplomatic source from the EU as
saying.#L#
Quoting the source of an EU member in Vienna, who "has held the EC's
opinion about Croatia", the daily reports that the avis is "very
positive".
The avis on Croatia's application is by far better than those of the
countries which will become full EU members on May 1, the daily quoted
the source as saying.
There are two outstanding issues - the case of runaway Hague war
crimes indictee Ante Gotovina and obstacles to the return of refugees
at the local level, the daily says.
Nevertheless, they will not be an obstacle to a positive opinion "if a
new serious incident does not occur before (the avis) is made public",
Vecernji List reports.
However, the daily also quotes the spokeswoman for the prosecution of
the UN war crimes tribunal, Florence Hartmann, who said that Gotovina
was still on the run and that his case still posed a problem in
relations between Croatia and the tribunal.
The prosecution does not have enough elements to conclude that
cooperation in the Gotovina case is satisfactory, Hartmann said.
The EC expects ICTY Prosecutor Carla del Ponte to issue an assessment
of Croatia's cooperation soon. Del Ponte's last assessment, presented
in February, was not satisfactory.
It is expected that the avis on Croatia will be made public on April
20, the daily reports.
(Hina) rml