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IGC on June 30
The tenth meeting of the Intergovernmental Conference with Croatia at Ministerial level was on Wednesday 30 of June in Brussels, following the start of the negotiations on 3 October 2005.
The European Union delegation was headed by Miguel Angel Moratinos, Spain's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. The Croatian delegation was led by Gordan Jandroković, Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration.
The Conference, which is the fruit of extensive work over several months, dealt in total with eight chapters and represented a significant milestone in Croatia's accession process with the opening of the last three screened negotiating chapters: Chapter 8 - Competition Policy; Chapter 23 - Judiciary and Fundamental Rights and Chapter 31 - Foreign, Security and Defence Policy.
In addition, the Conference provisionally closed negotiations on two further chapters: Chapter 5 - Public Procurement and Chapter 16 - Taxation, and confirmed at Ministerial level the provisional closure of Chapter 1 - Free Movement of Goods and the opening of Chapter 13 - Fisheries and Chapter 27 - Environment which were previously dealt by Accession Conferences at Deputy level.
The Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, emphasised Spain's "satisfaction" at having directed the final process of helping Croatia to open all the negotiation chapters to determine whether it is politically and economically ready to join the European Union.
According to Mr Moratinos, the EU "is
sending an unequivocal signal" with the progress towards Croatia's accession: that it is
open to new member states.
He was confident that the commitment regarding the Western Balkan states'
future in Europe is "unequivocal",
and although each country is following its own process and calendar, "the
strategic decision has now been determined".
"It's not Croatia and then we close the door, it's Croatia and opening the door further to the Balkans", he pointed out.
The Croatian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gordan Jandrokovic, thanked the Spanish Presidency and Mr Moratinos for their "firm and constant support" in its process to join the EU.
He felt that the conference was "one of the most important" for the country's accession, and he acknowledged that the eventual success of this process will come from observing European regulations.
He went on to say that one of his government's priorities was a "zero tolerance" of corruption, cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and good neighbourly relations with the other former Yugoslav republics
He was in favour of resolving the remaining issues left after the break-up of Yugoslavia.
According to Croatian estimates, it could
join the EU club during the Hungarian Presidency in the first half of 2011.
The European Commissioner for Enlargement, Stefan Fule, considered this forecast
to be reasonable, emphasising that it will depend on the Croatians themselves
being able to tackle the reforms required. He stated that the road map laid out
by the Croatian government for the reforms is "quite convincing", and
he encouraged them to "continue down the right path".