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"We are very satisfied with the outcome of [yesterday's] conference and I am sure that this was not the last chapter to be closed this month," Croatia's chief negotiator on EU accession, Vladimir Drobnjak, was quoted as saying by HINA agency.
Drobnjak added that the end of the negotiations was now "just round the corner".
Hungarian Ambassador to the EU Péter Györkös, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, said that a European Commission official had announced that drafts of the negotiating positions on the remaining four chapters would be forwarded to the EU's Council of Ministers in the coming days.
Following the closure of the fisheries policy area, Croatia has four more chapters left to conclude: Chapter 23 - Judiciary and Fundamental Rights; Chapter Eight - Competition Policy; Chapter 33 - Finance and Budgetary Provisions; and Chapter 35 – Other Issues, which is of a technical nature.
Györkös added that Hungary would do its best to ensure that Croatia's EU entry talks are closed by the end of its presidency. On 1 July, Poland will take over the rotating presidency from Hungary for the next six months.
Shadows of the past
The most challenging chapter still on the table is the one on Judiciary and Fundamental Rights. An important part of this chapter is the country's cooperation with the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Signals emitted by the chief prosecutor of ICTY Serge Brammertz continue to be bittersweet. Yesterday, Brammertz addressed the United Nations Security Council in New York, stressing that top Croatian officials had not commented "objectively" following the recent judgement against Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač.
Brammertz also said that limited progress was made in the search for documents from 1995's 'Operation Storm', citing "a number of inconsistencies".
In April 2011, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač were sentenced by the ICTY for war crimes while expelling Krajna Serbs from Croatia in 1995 during 'Operation Storm'. 350 innocent victims perished during the ethnic cleansing, which caused around 200,000 Serbs to flee the former Yugoslav Republic at the end of the 1991-1995 war.
Gotovina was sentenced to 25 years and Markač to 18 years. The sentences triggered furious reactions in Croatia, where the two generals are seen by many as national heroes. Apparently, Brammertz was referring to public statements by Croatian politicians who criticised the ICTY.
More conditionality until accession?
Recently, Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal said his country advocated introducing "an additional mechanism" to monitor Croatia's commitments between the end of the negotiations and accession.
Reportedly, France is in favour of such a mechanism. French European Affairs Minister Laurent Wauquiez recently said that Croatia's EU accession could be postponed if the country does not honour its obligations.
The issue is to be discussed at the meeting of EU foreign ministers on 20 June in Luxembourg. A final decision is expected to be taken at the 24-25 June EU summit in Brussels, and could crown the Hungarian EU Presidency, which has strongly pushed for Croatia's accession.
One possible decision by the EU summit could be to set a target date for Croatia's accession – maybe 1 July 2013, according to the Commission's proposal. The EU executive said it had put the draft accession date on the table for budget planning purposes.
