Accession treaty to be drafted soon, if Croatia continues with progress

STRASBOURG, Nov 26. (Hina). The Swedish European Union Presidency has announced that it could soon convene a working group to draw up an accession treaty for Croatia, provided that Croatia makes sufficient progress in meeting EU membership criteria.

If Croatia makes sufficient progress, we will convene an ad hoc working group to draw up an accession treaty on the basis of the text prepared by the Commission, said Ambassador Per Sjoegren, who represented the Swedish EU Presidency at a meeting of the EU-Croatia Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).

The committee began the two-day meeting in Strasbourg on Wednesday afternoon.

The meeting is being chaired by Swedish MEP Gunnar Hoekmark, a member of the European People's Party (EPP), and Mario Zubovic, a Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) member of the Croatian parliament.

On Wednesday, the agenda of the JPC meeting included the situation of Croatia's EU accession negotiations against a backdrop of the European Commission's latest progress report on Croatia, and the state of affairs in the Croatian judiciary and the country's cooperation with the Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

On Thursday, refugee return, ethnic minorities' protection, public procurement, the EU Lisbon Treaty and climate change will be on the agenda.

Croatia's chief negotiator Vladimir Drobnjak informed the committee about the course of the membership talks, and Justice Ministry State Secretary Kristijan Turkalj spoke about judicial matters.

Drobnjak said that he had just received official information that at the forthcoming accession conference, to be held on Friday in Brussels, Croatia would close three negotiating chapters: Financial Services, Energy, and Consumer and Health Protection.

This will raise the number of provisionally closed policy chapters to 15.

Ambassador Sjoegren said that the EU Presidency regretted that ICTY Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz had so far not been able to report progress in Croatia's cooperation with the tribunal, even though the Croatian government was showing signs of political will to solve the issue of access to the requested documents.

This issue should be settled without delay, and Brammertz's report to the UN Security Council on 3 December will be closely followed by the member-states, the Swedish official said.

The JPC vice-chairwoman, Slovenian Socialist Tanja Fajon, supported a proposal that the task force, set up by the Croatian government to deal with the issue of artillery logs, should also include foreign experts. The task force was formed in a bid to establish what had happened with those documents, sought by the tribunal.

The proposal that foreign police and security experts should join the Croatian task force has already been presented by the EP's Croatia rapporteur, Austrian Socialist Hannes Swoboda, in a draft report on Croatia's progress.

Turkalj told the committee that this was actually Croatia's suggestion, which was conveyed to Brammertz via the Swedish EU Presidency.

Turkalj called for not applying double standards when assessing Croatia's cooperation with the ICTY.

Double standards are unacceptable. We are being asked to show concrete results, and other countries are being asked to do their best, he said, adding that this criticism was not directed against Serbia.

Turkalj said that the blockade of the Judiciary and Fundamental Rights policy chapter was becoming counterproductive for reform efforts in the judiciary.

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