Prime Minister Janez Jansa warned Croatia on Friday it could find itself in a situation similar to the one currently faced by Turkey if its parliament endorsed the decision to enforce the ecological and fishery zone regime for all EU member states on 1 January 2008.
Jansa, who was taking part in the EU summit, said that by enforcing the regime on that date, Croatia would set itself a very short time frame in which it would have to complete negotiations on fisheries with the EU.
This is a "somewhat risky undertaking", Jansa said, because there are no assurances the negotiations on fisheries would be completed by that date, since "this does not depend on Croatia alone, but also on the EU".
Jansa, who had a brief meeting with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader on the sidelines of the EU summit on Friday, said that Croatia, if an agreement were not reached in time, could find itself in a similar situation as Turkey.
After Turkey failed to meet its commitments from the negotiations, there was a reaction from the EU, Jansa said, referring to Monday's decision of the EU to partly freeze accession negotiations with Turkey.
Jansa offered a chronological recap of how the regime developed, ending with the current situation, in which the regime applies only to vessels sailing under the Croatian flag and not for those sailing under the flags of EU countries.
According to Jansa, this fact is causing "certain internal policy complications" in Croatia, which makes it a an issue that always becomes topical ahead of elections. Jansa believes that the latest decision proposed by the Croatian government needs to be seen in this light.
He added that nothing would in fact change on the ground until 2008.
Things might however get complicated if the fishery and some other issues connected to the environmental protection of the Adriatic sea are not resolved by 1 January 2008. This problem is not limited to the EU, but includes some wider international legal aspects, Jansa added.
Jansa made the comments just hours before the Croatian parliament endorsed the government's proposal to enforce the special zone in the Adriatic sea on 1 January 2008.
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