Gradual introduction of rules which will be respected was one of reasons for Croatia's entry into the European Union, Croatian Foreign Affairs Minister Vesna Pusic said on Monday evening, adding that her country should first abide by the existing rules in the EU and then lobby for their possible change.
It is true that old European Union member-states were eligible to some limits in implementation of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), and that entrants after 2002 were not entitled to it, Pusic told the national television (HTV) in an interview.
Asked by the anchorman that the question might be raised about equality, the foreign minister explained that Croatia had had to translate a much larger volume of acquis communautaire than previous acceding countries as it was natural given that the EU had been developing and the Union was different today than, for example, in the 1980s.
"It is certainly one of reasons for Croatia's interest in becoming an EU member that we start gradually transpose EU rules into the national legislation and comply with them" Pusic said.
We should not try to detect unfriendliness or plot, she said in the context of interpretations of the European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding's request for explanations when Croatia intends to amend the current national legislation on the judicial cooperation which is dubbed Lex Perkovic and which the national parliament adopted two day before Croatia's admission to the European Union. The contentious legislation introduced time limits to the implementation of the EAW on crimes committed after August 2002.
It is legitimate for Croatia to talk with other countries and try launch the process of amending the EAW rules, but it is important to respect the order and as long as the EAW rules are not changed (at the EU level), we "must abide by the existing rules", Pusic said.
The Czech Republic and Slovenia also sought to get some time restrictions for EAW, however, all countries that joined the Union after 2002 had to accept the implementation of the EAW with no time limits, she said.
Pusic admitted that it was inelegant for Croatia to adopt the legislation introducing the time limits for EAW just before its admission to the Union.
As for lustration which was carried out in some eastern European countries after the fall of the Communist regime Pusic believes that Croatia also needed it in order to clarify cases from the past.
A deadline by which Zagreb was expected to reply to the European Commission's question about when it plans to align Croatia's law on the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) with European legislation expired at midnight this past Friday, but Croatia's justice ministry did not send any answer to Commissioner Reding by then. The law which Croatia's ruling majority passed on 28 June was dubbed Lex Perkovic as the critics believe that the time limits for the application of the EAW to crimes committed after August 2002 were imposed by the government in a bid to prevent extradition of Croatian citizen Josip Perkovic, a Yugoslav-era secret agent, who is believed to have masterminded the assassination of a Croat dissident in Bavaria in 1983. German requests his handover.
