The 27 EU member states agreed Thursday to open two new membership negotiation chapters with Croatia despite a maritime row between Zagreb. (TDN)
The 27 EU member states agreed Thursday to open two new membership negotiation chapters with Croatia despite a maritime row between Zagreb, Rome and Ljubljana, diplomatic sources said. Ambassadors from the 27, meeting in Brussels, agreed to open the chapters of health and consumer protection and on foreign relations. After the move is formally sealed on Friday, Croatia will have opened 14 of the 35 policy chapters which must be successfully negotiated prior to EU membership since its talks with the EU began in October 2005. The Croatian government is confident of becoming the EU's 28th member state and hopes to do so in 2009. Its progress compares very favorably with fellow EU candidate nation Turkey, which began talks at the same time but has so far opened only four policy chapters. There had been some concern that Croatia's row with Italy and Slovenia over fishing rights in the Adriatic could muddy the diplomatic waters for Zagreb.The row over Croatia's imposition of a fisheries protection zone and another row over tracing the maritime border between Slovenia and Croatia, could hit the membership process at any stage.
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