Croatia president addresses EU concerns

ZAGREB, Croatia, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Croatian president Ivo Josipovic joined a Facebook discussion Tuesday about Croatia's EU membership.

The Croatia Times reports that Josipovic was carefully following the discussion, taking into account citizens' positive and negative reactions leading up to the Jan. 22 referendum. Then, he said he decided to join.

"We are not losing sovereignty by joining the EU. The EU is not a state, it is a community of equal and sovereign states joined voluntarily," he said. "In the EU, every state has an equal and sovereign vote when it comes to decision-making."

He also noted that the Croatian language would become one of the official languages of the union.

The comments come shortly after the largest protest on the EU membership over the weekend, when some 400 people gathered in Zagreb to demonstrate against it.

A recent survey commissioned by Council for Croatia-No to EU and carried out between Jan. 8 and 15 by the independent Business Knowledge Corp. showed 57 percent of Croats surveyed to be against EU membership. A report gave no details on the survey or the margin of error.