CROATIA GRANTS FISHING RIGHTS TO BOOST EU TALKS
03.15.08 - Leído 64 veces. Enviar esta notaIgor Ilic
Croatia’s parliament voted on Thursday to allow European Union fishermen to operate in an Adriatic no-fishing zone, a concession that should rejuvenate the former Yugoslav republic’s EU membership talks
ZAGREB, Croatia; March 15, 2008.- A tiny majority of deputies supported the ruling Croatian Democratic Union’s proposal to scrap enforcement of the zone on EU countries after the European Commission made clear accession talks would stall unless the issue was resolved.
“The fisheries zone is important, a national interest, but EU accession is an absolute national priority,” Prime Minister Ivo Sanader told deputies during the parliamentary debate.
Some nationalist leaders and Croatian fishermen described the vote as a capitulation in the face of an EU ultimatum, but Sanader said the country had no choice if it wanted to achieve its goal of joining the EU in 2010 or 2011.
Most of the opposition abstained from the vote, state radio reported. Sanader’s main coalition partner, the conservative Peasant Party which strongly supports the zone, voted against but said this would not affect its presence in government.
At the start of the year Croatia added EU members to the list of those it had barred from fishing in the zone, which reaches into the middle of the Adriatic and is designed to preserve fish stocks and limit pollution.
Italy and Slovenia said the measure had breached a pledge by Zagreb not to apply the zone to EU countries.
The parliament’s decision did not affect non-EU countries barred from the zone.
Croatia, which declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, has made joining the EU and NATO its top strategic goal, which should boost its economic prosperity and ensure political stability after the turbulence of its Yugoslav past.
Analysts said Croatia could now turn to leading problems in its accession talks, including delayed reforms of the judiciary, fighting corruption and high state subsidies.
Political analyst Damir Grubisa said the government’s wish to speed up EU membership talks was feasible but highly ambitious.
“The European Commission could help accelerate talks but the time frame for key and most difficult reforms is very tight. It is practically a race against time,” said Grubisa.
(Reuters)
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