Voicing support for Croatia's EU bid, British Prime Minister Tony Blair assured his Croatian counterpart Ivo Sanader on Tuesday (18 July) that his country will be able to join the Union, once it meets the requirements for membership.
"There is no political block at all on Croatia coming in," Blair said at a joint press conference with Sanader after their first official meeting on 10 Downing Street in London. "That political decision has been taken. Europe wants Croatia as a full member of the EU. Britain wants Croatia as a full member of the EU. The sole question is meeting the criteria -- meet the criteria and you come in."
The accession process is mostly the same for all countries seeking entry into the bloc, but each candidate is judged on its own merits, Blair said. "There is no sense that Croatia has to wait for other countries to get to the same stage as Croatia. No, each country is treated on its merits, the merits of Croatia are very clear and I just wish you well in the endeavour to make sure that the criteria are met," he said.
Croatia began its membership talks with the Union in October 2005, together with Turkey. But while Croatia hopes to join the 25-nation bloc in 2009, Turkey's accession negotiations are expected to take at least another ten years.
Sanader, on his first official visit to Britain, said his meeting with Blair was "an important event not only for our bilateral relations but also for Croatia's road to the EU and NATO".
Praising Britain for its role as an advocate of EU enlargement, the Croatian leader also thanked Blair for his support for his country's activities in the region, which will continue after Croatia has joined the EU.
"We are very interested in how the region will develop and all open issues will be resolved," Sanader said. "So we will be very active, we are very active, we are sharing this process of co-operation in Southeast Europe for one year and we believe that all Southeastern European countries have this perspective of future EU membership."
Speaking later at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, Sanader said Croatia has shown by example that reforms in the region are possible.
Answering a question regarding Kosovo, Sanader said any solution to the province's final status should ensure the protection of minority rights and that Belgrade should be involved in the process of reaching a settlement so that Serbia, and the entire region, would not be destabilised, Croatian news agency HINA reported.
Asked if Croatia would help Serbia implement its action plan for full co-operation with the UN war crimes tribunal, Sanader said his country would do all it could so that the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic, could finally be arrested and brought to justice.
Sanader, who will visit Belgrade on Friday, said implementation of the action plan would be among the issues he would discuss with his Serbian counterpart, Vojislav Kostunica.
