BRUSSELS: Croatia took a step towards finalising its European Union accession negotiations on Friday, closing talks on three policy areas in hopes of becoming an EU member in the next two years.
Zagreb’s chief EU negotiator, Vladimir Drobnjak, said after meeting EU officials in Brussels that the former Yugoslav republic should be able to complete accession preparations in the first half of 2011.
“Our goal is to close talks during the Hungarian presidency of the EU. This is feasible,” Drobnjak told reporters. Hungary holds the 27-member bloc’s rotating presidency during the first six months of next year.
The timing of Croatia’s EU accession could play an important role in coming months as EU leaders search for ways to amend the bloc’s main law, the Lisbon treaty, to create a permanent system for handling financial crises in member states.
Some EU diplomats have suggested that attaching changes to Croatia’s accession treaty could be one solution.
But Zagreb’s time frame could be ambitious, given that it could inject uncertainty into the debate on how to address EU treaty changes. The EU has given Croatia no target entry date.
After closing negotiation “chapters” on the issues of free movement of capital, transport policy and EU institutions on Friday, Croatia still faces tough talks on state aid and judicial reforms.
To finalise talks, it will have to convince EU states it has sufficiently implemented reforms to combat pervasive corruption.
