Croatia Makes Progress in EU Accession Process

Six chapters were opened and five were closed at the intergovernmental conference held in Brussels last week, the Swedish presidency said in a statement on its website.

"Croatia is now making progress towards the final stage,” the statement said.

The Adriatic country is on track to achieve its goal of completing accession negotiations with the EU by the autumn of 2009, Foreign Affairs and European Integration Minister Gordan Jandrokovic said in June. If Croatia meets a certain number of requirements, the European Commission will present in November a target timetable for the technical completion of the negotiations in 2009, the EU executive has said. 

The newly opened five chapters include free movement of capital; agriculture and rural protection; food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy; taxation; regional policy and coordination of structural instruments), and justice, freedom and security opened, the statement said.

Croatia has closed the chapters on freedom of movement for workers, company law, statistics, trans-European networks) and customs union.

Also, the meeting on the border issue between Slovenia and Croatia has seen progress toward an agreement, based on international law and good-neighbourly relations, the statement said.

In September, Croatia and European Union member Slovenia reached an agreement on the resumption of accession talks between the bloc and the government in Zagreb and on continuing their negotiations on a long-standing bilateral border dispute.

Croatia's EU membership talks, launched in 2005, hit a major snag last December when its neighbour Slovenia vetoed any further progress in the negotiations because of a dispute over their Adriatic sea border in the Bay of Piran. The dispute is dating back to the collapse in 1991 of the former Yugoslav Federation, of which both Croatia and Slovenia were parts.