Croatian PM Sanader steps down

ZAGREB, Croatia, July 1 (UPI) -- Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader Wednesday said he resigned all his political posts including president of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union, or HDZ.

Sanader, 56, told a news conference in Zagreb his deputy Jadranka Kosor will lead the government and the HDZ party. He said he is stepping down on personal reasons and rejected rumors he could run in the 2010 presidential election.

Sanader was first elected prime minister in December 2003 and re-elected in January 2008, when he reformed the nationalist HDZ party of the late President Franjo Tudjman -- the first head of state of independent Croatia -- to a conservative center-right party.

He succeeded in leading Croatia to NATO in April this year and has brought the country close to membership of the European Union.

His setbacks included stalling accession talks with the EU caused by a border dispute with Slovenia, the only former Yugoslav republic that joined the EU in 2004, and the current economic problems such as the 6.7 percent drop of the gross domestic product in the first quarter this year compared with the first three months in 2008.

The 6.7 percent GDP decline is the biggest in the past 10 years.