SECI PROGRAMME COMMITTEE HOLDS SESSION

GENEVA, March 24 (Hina) - The Programme Committee of the Southeastern Europe Cooperation Initiative (SECI) held its second meeting on Monday. The meting focused on political frameworks and modalities of the work of SECI. During the meeting, Croatian and Slovenian delegations reiterated their stances hat they could not accept the status of members of the initiative for now, but they also reiterated the interest of their governments and economic subjects for certain development projects. During the discussion, SECI coordinator Ernard Busek accepted the Croatian delegation's amendments which more clearly state that SECI was not an integration group, but an elastic frame for the initiation and realisation of concrete projects and programmes the member countries were interested in. At the request of the Croatian delegation, an article of the SECI work document was removed. The article envisaged the possibility of a later acceptance of stricter regulations of the work of the Iniciative, that is, the possibility of its firmer institutionalisation. After the second session of the Programme Committee, it could be said that SECI found the way from the conception of its initiators to its economic realisation difficult. The fears and assessments established at the start of the Initiative had been proven true, that member countries were not enough turned towards mutual trade, mostly because of their different degrees of development and developmental priorities and interests. On the other hand, international private capital is very hard to draw in, especially into the southeastern sector of the Balkan peninsula, which is still labelled with great economic and political instability. The doubt of central European countries' representatives present at SECI meetings regarding its true prospects and final results is perfectly understandable. The Croatian delegation consisted of Croatian Assistant Foreign Minister, Spomenka Cek, Ambassador Darko Bekic and head of a Foreign Ministry office, Dunja Jevak. (hina) lm 242200 MET mar 97