Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor on Wednesday received the European Union ambassador to Croatia, Paul Vandoren, who extended the European Commission's full support for the completion of accession negotiations with Croatia, a press release said.
Kosor voiced confidence that this would be the final year of the accession negotiations and outlined what Croatia was doing to meet that goal.
She said the government was continuing to fully cooperate with the Hague war crimes tribunal in accordance with the constitutional law on cooperation with the UN court, and briefed Vandoren about efforts to strengthen the rule of law through new measures in the anti-corruption action plan.
Vandoren commended Kosor's leadership and expressed willingness to cooperate further in meeting benchmarks for the completion of the EU entry talks.
He said the completion of the negotiations would give Croatia new possibilities for economic and social development, primarily in the use of European accession funds.
He congratulated Kosor on her initiative to co-organise with Slovenia on Saturday a conference on support to southeast Europe. Kosor said she expected the conference to give a strong signal of encouragement to all countries in the neighbouring region.
Vandoren underlined that he was the first, and probably the last, EU ambassador to Croatia after the Treaty of Lisbon went into force.
Kosor said the latest surveys showed that the majority of Croatians supported membership of the EU, adding the government would intensify communication with the public about the value of European integration. She and Vandoren were agreed that the marking of Europe Day in early May would be the right opportunity to do so.
