The Council of the European Union on Tuesday issued a statement on last night's meeting of EU countries' foreign ministers saying that the European Commission would present as soon as possible draft common negotiating positions on the remaining open policy chapters in the entry talks with Croatia, which implies that the accession negotiations are nearing completion.
The ministers took note of the Commission's intention to submit to the Council as soon as possible the EU's draft common negotiating positions for the open chapters, said the statement signed by the Council's chairman, Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martony.
The Commission starts drafting the common negotiating positions after assessing that all closing benchmarks have been met.
The two sides in the negotiations -- the EU countries and the accession candidate -- each defines its negotiating position on each policy chapter which are then agreed during the negotiations.
The EU General Affairs Council, which comprises foreign or European affairs ministers, last night held a regular meeting and informally discussed Croatia at a working dinner.
Before the meeting, a number of ministers said they advocated a swift completion of the negotiations with Croatia, while some said one should first wait for the European Commission's opinion on Croatia's readiness for membership.
A statement issued after the meeting said the ministers had exchanged opinions on how to approach the final stage of negotiations with Croatia on its accession to the EU.
Croatia has five more chapters to close. For the Fisheries chapter, the European Commission has already forwarded a draft negotiating position saying Croatia has met all the closing benchmarks.
The Commission has to define positions for the "Judiciary and Fundamental Rights", "Competition Policy", "Financial and Budgetary Provisions" and "Other Issues" chapters.
For defining the position on the "Financial and Budgetary Provisions" chapter, it is necessary to know the EU accession date, as the chapter defines the financial obligations between the EU and the candidate countries.
The fact that the Commission intends to start drawing up a negotiating position on that chapter means that it knows the target date of Croatia's accession. According to diplomatic sources, the date is 1 July 2013, but nobody wants to officially confirm this before the final details have been agreed, such as monitoring of commitments in the period between the completion of the negotiations and the actual accession.
