Croatia's entry into the European Union will bring prospects of the economic, scientific and educational development, President Ivo Josipovic said in an interview in the prime time news programme of the Nova commercial television on Saturday evening.
After the European Commission's recommendation for the finalisation of Croatia's membership negotiations, President Josipovic is confident that the political part of the negotiations will also end successfully.
Asked whether France or Great Britain could cause problems in the process of ratification of the Croatia-EU accession treaty, Josipovic said that the process of the ratification meant that by closing the negotiations, EU members already recognised the aspirant as a part of the EU and that ratification should be a pure formality.
"Theoretically speaking, it is always possible to imagine some problem occurring but I do not believe that it will happen," he said.
Josipovic said he did not fear that a referendum on Croatia's EU entry could fail and reiterated that it would be good to separate the next parliamentary elections from the referendum.
He declined to speculate about possible dates for the elections, adding that in his opinion the elections should be held before the referendum.
Josipovic also declined to comment on the latest move of former Croatian Prime Minister, Ivo Sanader, who announced that he would ask for his fast-track extradition from Austria to Zagreb after he had for some time ruled out that possibility.
Josipovic said that it was the matter for the defence team of Sanader, who has been in the extradition custody in Salzburg since 10 December 2010. He is wanted in Croatia on white-collar crime.
The president went on to say that he would watch the developments in this case with great attention as this was about a former premier, suspected of grave crimes.
