AGREEMENT ON PROTECTION OF ADRIATIC SEA REACHED

( Editorial: --> 6888 ) PORTOROZ, Jan 24 (Hina) - Stronger cooperation, more frequent meetings and concrete tasks and deadlines will be characteristics of the future work of the joint Slovene-Croatian-Italian Commission for the Protection of the Adriatic. The Commission held their third meeting since Croatia and Slovenia have become independent states, and certain issues agreed on through the Italian-Yugoslav agreement on the protection of the Adriatic had to be rephrased. Almost all Croatian suggestions were accepted and installed into the agreement. Croatia has make some very significant and noticed steps in interventions and prevention of ecological incidents in the Adriatic. According to the Secretary of the Croatian Adriatic Protection Department, Andrija Randic, the Croatian government was among the first in the Adriatic to have adopted such a plan, seven county plans were in drafting, and two very respectable centres for the protection of the Adriatic had been established. Croatia has for some years now been controlling activities of checking the quality of the sea water, and the Croatian government last year financed twenty additional monitoring points. Special attention has been given to the informing of tourists, and before the tourist season, boats-cleaners are put in operation. (hina) lm 241101 MET jan 98