Croatia believes that June as the deadline for wrapping up the negotiations with the European Union is still attainable, notably after two more chapters in Croatia's EU entry talks were closed at the intergovernmental conference in Brussels on Tuesday, Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said in Zagreb.
"We expect that our objective, which is to close the negotiations by the end of June, be still attainable. We continue to believe that this is possible," Kosor told a news conference called on the occasion of closing two police areas in Brussels earlier today - Chapter 11 Agriculture and Rural Development and Chapter 22 Regional Policy and the Coordination of Structural Instruments.
"Today we are a lot closer to finalising the negotiations because we closed two chapters and have all conditions to close Chapter 13 Fisheries and Chapter 33 Finance and Budgetary provisions for which we only need a date", Kosor said.
She added that obligations from the two most difficult chapters - Chapter 23 Judiciary and Fundamental Rights and Chapter 8 Market Competition - are being met "to the satisfaction of the government and citizens and the European Commission"
Asked about reactions in Brussels to Croatia's officials position about the non-final verdict against generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac and if Croatia has sent a message that it will respect all obligations concerning cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, which is one of the condition for closing Chapter 23, Kosor said that reconsidering cooperation was out of the question.
"As far as the government is concerned, reconsidering or bringing into question cooperation, namely the implementation of the constitutional law on cooperation with the ICTY is out of the question, because this is the obligation Croatia has taken many years ago. This is our obligation and changing anything about it is out of the question," Kosor stressed, adding that Croatia is a law-based state in which decisions of institutions were being respected.
"We have clearly shown what was important in that moment and that is that the term 'joint criminal enterprise' was unacceptable for us and that we will do everything a government is expected to do to have this part of the verdict quashed in the appeals process," she added.
Asked if Croatia was considering the withdrawal of a genocide lawsuit against Serbia before the International Court of Justice, following some statements from Serbia hinting this as a possibility, Kosor said the government was not considering withdrawing the suit. "We haven't talked and we aren't talking about it," she said.
Commenting on a decreasing support of Croatian citizens to the country's joining the European Union, as shown in latest opinion polls carried out after the ICTY verdict against the Croatian generals, Kosor said "this was in a way expected".
However, if the opinion poll was to be carried out today, after the closure of two more chapter, it would probably show a somewhat higher support. Once we are able to say that we have completed the job, the support will be significantly higher, I believe a respectable," she said. "We do not doubt referendum results," Kosor said.
