Progress report on Croatia presented in European Parliament

Progress report on Croatia presented in European Parliament

The draft report passed first reading before the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday and members of the Committee can propose their amendments by March 1. The Committee is due to vote on the report on March 27, after which it will be referred as a proposed resolution to the European Parliament. Resolutions, which are unbinding documents, are put to the vote at plenary sessions of the Parliament.

Croatian Justice Minister Ana Lovrin is scheduled to address the Committee on March 20.

The report congratulated the Croatian authorities for "the rapid progress made so far in accession negotiations, particularly in the adoption of key pieces of legislation in crucial areas such as public administration, the administration of courts and anti-corruption policy."

The report urges the Croatian government "actively to encourage and support the prosecution of war crimes, regardless of the nationality of the perpetrators, (and) deplores in this respect the government's offer to support the defence costs for General Gotovina and its request to act as amicus curiae in Gotovina's and other cases pending before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), since both those decisions send out an ambivalent message to the general public."

The draft document regrets that "the provisions in the Civil Service Act introducing transparency and objectivity in the appointment and assessment of civil servants will not enter into force until after the next election."

On the subject of the economy, the report cited steadily increasing economic growth based on an ambitious reform agenda and on strong private investment and expressed hope that this would soon result in more jobs.

The Croatian government was reminded that "an open, competitive market economy is a fundamental requirement for EU membership" and was urged to "implement more seriously and expeditiously the agreed targets for the sale of minority and majority state-owned interests in companies and for the reduction of state subsidies, particularly those to non-viable companies."

The report concluded by urging the Croatian and Slovenian governments "to exploit all the opportunities available in order to reach an agreement on all their pending issues" and inviting them "to abstain from any unilateral decision which might undermine such an agreement."