CROATIA: Croatian President Mr Stjepan Mesic has urged his compatriots to unite behind the bid to join the European Union, after he won re-election in convincing style.
Mr Mesic secured a second and final term in office by taking 66 per cent of Sunday's vote, against 34 per cent for Ms Jadranka Kosor, a deputy prime minister from the right-wing ruling party.
Mr Mesic (70) was backed by eight mostly left-wing opposition parties, but quickly extended a conciliatory hand to his adversaries and asked them to support Croatia's efforts to join the EU with Romania and Bulgaria in 2007.
"Today Croatia is striding towards Europe. Now we have to be united and have a national consensus to achieve our goals," Mr Mesic said as his election lead became unassailable early yesterday morning. "We have travelled a long way and Croatia's democracy has been confirmed," said the former prime minister, who is the country's second president since it declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. "The world can see that and that's why we are standing at the doorstep of Europe."
Mr Mesic won his first term in 2000, succeeding the autocratic and nationalist President Franjo Tudjman, who died two months earlier after ruling Croatia for a decade. The West welcomed Croatia back into the fold after Mr Tudjman's death, and the EU is set to start accession talks with Zagreb in March. While Mr Mesic wants to join the bloc in 2007, most analysts believe 2009 to be a more realistic target.
"Our main task now is to pass EU-compatible legislation and reach European standards, but that cannot be done without revitalising the economy and boosting employment," he said.
However, officials in Brussels have warned Croatia that its membership bid will be hampered if it fails to arrest Gen Ante Gotovina and hand him over to the United Nations tribunal at The Hague to face war crimes charges.
Mr Mesic and others insist Gen Gotovina is not hiding in Croatia, where he is still widely regarded as a hero of the 1991-95 war with the Serbs.
Other politically sensitive obstacles on Croatia's path to Europe include the return of some 200,000 ethnic Serb refugees who fled at the end of the conflict, judicial reform, and the resolution of a border dispute with Slovenia.