We had a very good discussion about the progress Croatia has made in the remaining chapters inthe final stage of the negotiations, Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele said after the discussion. He briefed the foreign ministers about the current state of Croatia's accession negotiations.

Only a few ministers were willing to tell the press something about the discussion which concluded without joint conclusions which had been announced by EU president Hungary.

I am quite satisfied, as the discussion was open and constructive. Everyone knows that meeting the criteria is crucial, and Commissioner Fuele's report was quite optimistic, so I am confident that Croatia will cross the last metres of this long race, said Slovak Foreign Minister Mikulas Dzurinda, whose country strongly supports Croatia's accession to the EU as soon as possible.

Asked if it was possible to complete the accession negotiations in June, by the end of Hungary's EU presidency, Dzurinda said he would like that, but that Fuele said in the discission that this morning he received a lot of material from Zagreb, with information and explanations the Commission had requested from the Croatian government, and that some time was necessary to study those materials.

Regarding an accession date, Dzurinda said this was not the most important issue at the moment. The most important is to cross the last metres, he added.

Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal said Croatia had made remarkable progress in recent months and that now one had to wait for the European Commission's report. He added his country advocated introducing an additional mechanism to monitor commitments.

Croatia is definitely making good progress and the progress achieved in recent months is to be highly commended. We are waiting for the Commission to release in the coming weeks a solid progress report. I think it would be good to introduce a monitoring mechanism in the period between the completion of the negotiations and accession, said Rosenthal.