Next year, the European Union will be an instrument for accomplishing our goals and our goals are a stable and safe country, a stable state budget, the sovereign and high-quality management of our own assets, higher employment and better jobs for the Croatians, Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said on Friday during his keynote speech at the beginning of the parliament's discussion of the bill on the ratification of the Croatia-EU Accession Treaty.
"The EU is a means for ensuring the high-quality life and a higher-level security in the happiness index. However for our generation, the EU is also a goal itself. There will be more goals, however, this is one of the important goals in life," the premier said.
"After twenty years the time has come for us to bring the project of our state to completion. This is an important moment, we have attained the goal, also we are provided with an important means, and everything in the future depends on us," he told the Sabor.
Calling on the Croatians to be focused on what is important, the premier said that Croatia had neither enough people nor enough money to be engaged in everything and to pay for everything.
We must recognise what is important for us, which EU instruments are available to us to help us to achieve our objectives, Milanovic said.
He recalled that four or five years ago the EU had been perceived as a monolithic bloc of countries with similar growth and technologies and harmonised legal systems which was striding towards increasing wealth and security.
This was a delusion, the Croatian premier said.
"All are not the same, there are those who are faring worse, which does not mean that they are less good, or that those who are faring better are perfect. The success has its reasons and explanations," he added.
I believe that Croatia can make positive use of the EU in order to create a stronger, more successful and higher-quality state in which people will feel better, Milanovic said, adding that the country must be aware of its limits and behave accordingly.
Croatia's Parliament on Friday began the discussion on the bill to ratify the country's Treaty of Accession to the European Union.
The ratification of the document is the only item on today's agenda.
Apart from Milanovic, in attendance were government ministers and foreign diplomats in Croatia.
Opening today's session, Sabor Speaker Boris Sprem said that the requirements for the ratification of the accession treaty in the Croatian parliament were met after the Constitutional Court recently established that the EU accession referendum at which the Croatians voted for the country's membership in the EU bloc had been conducted in line with law.
The treaty, signed in Brussels on 9 December 2011, has to be ratified by 27 EU member-states by 1 July 2013 when Croatia is due to join the bloc.
So far, five countries have done so: Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy and Malta.
