ZAGREB WEEKLY ACTIVITY REPORT - MARCH 12, 2008

C O N F I D E N T I A L ZAGREB 000247 SIPDIS SIPDIS FOR EUR/SCE, EUR/PPD, EUR/RPM AND EUR/ERA OSD FOR WINTERNITZ E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/01/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV HR SUBJECT: ZAGREB WEEKLY ACTIVITY REPORT - MARCH 12, 2008 REF: ZAGREB 229 Classified By: Rick Holtzapple, POL/ECON, Reasons 1.4 B/D ¶1. (U) POLLS CONTINUE TO SHOW RISING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR NATO...: Two polls conducted in early March confirmed the upward trend of public support for Croatia's membership in NATO reported in last week's activity report (REF). The first, conducted by Accent agency and commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asked 1000 respondents about whether or not they supported Croatia joining NATO, an alliance of states including Germany, France, the U.S. and others. Positive responses were 59.3 percent, with 19.2 percent against and 21.4 percent undecided. This was reportedly a seven percent increase in positive responses from the same agency's previous poll. The results from the second poll, recently conducted by the locally well-known GCF agency have not yet been published, but foreign ministry sources told us its results had 60 percent support for Croatia joining NATO, 21 percent against and 16 percent undecided. (ZTomic) ¶2. (C) ...AS OPPOSITION LEADER SAYS HE WILL NOT SUPPORT EFFORTS TO FORCE A REFERENDUM ON NATO: The president of the leading Social Democratic (SDP) opposition party, Zoran Milanovic, told the Ambassador at a private lunch on March 11 that the SDP would not support an NGO campaign to collect 450,000 signatures and force the government to organize a referendum on NATO accession (see last week's report reftel). While one of the SDP's policies in last November's parliamentary elections had been to support such a referendum, Milanovic said that this issue was now settled, and he would not be demanding a referendum. (RHoltzapple) ¶3. (U) DOD-FUNDED EQUIPMENT MAKES CROATIAN POULTRY CENTER SAFE FOR AVIAN FLU RESEARCH The Croatian Veterinary Institute Poultry Center has completed installation of a laminar flow microbiological safety chamber provided by the US DOD European Command Humanitarian Assistance Program. This $16,500 project improves biosafety at the laboratory to level 2, the level required for work with the avian influenza virus (H5N1) according to international standards. With this equipment, the Poultry Center will continue to serve as the avian flu test lab for Croatia and a verification lab for other countries in the region. (SLitke) Bradtke