Over the past year, 20 EU members have ratified Croatia's EU accession treaty and seven are yet to do so - the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Slovenia.

In some of the countries, such as the UK, France and Belgium, the ratification process is near completion, while the others are awaiting a final monitoring report on the three most important policy areas which the European Commission is to release in the middle or second half of March. In order for the accession treaty to become effective, it must be ratified by all member states.

Problems with ratification are not expected from any of the countries except Slovenia which makes it contingent on resolving the Ljubljanska Banka issue. Slovenian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec has said recently that Slovenia will not ratify the treaty unless Croatia withdraws its power of attorney to two Croatian banks for lawsuits against Ljubljanska Banka. Slovenia says that the issue of indemnification of Croatian clients of the now defunct Slovenian bank should be dealt with in the process of succession to the former Yugoslavia and that the lawsuits are in violation of the succession agreement to which Croatia is a party.

The European Union has no sympathy for the Slovenian position saying that it is a bilateral issue that should have nothing to do with accession to the European Union. A highly-placed EU source has said they do not even want to consider the possibility of the treaty not being ratified in time, adding that as July 1 get nearer pressure will mount on both sides to resolve the problem and noting that the accession treaty does not provide for a legal possibility of delaying Croatia's entry.

Of vital importance to Croatia will be the final monitoring report on the three most important policy areas -- Judiciary and Fundamental Rights; Justice, Freedom and Security; and Competition Policy. In its previous report, released in October, the European Commission said that Croatia was making good progress in its preparations for membership, identifying 10 issues the country needed to address in order to be fully ready for membership.

Those issues are: signing a privatisation contract for the Brodosplit shipyard and taking the necessary decisions to find a viable solution for the 3. Maj and Brodotrogir shipyards in order to complete the restructuring of the shipbuilding industry; implementing the short term measures elaborated in September 2012 for increasing the efficiency of the judiciary and reducing the court backlog; adopting the new enforcement legislation in order to ensure the execution of court decisions and reduce the backlog of enforcement cases; establishing the Conflict of Interest Commission so that it starts working; adopting the new law on access to information in order to strengthen the legal and administrative framework in the area of access to information; completing the adoption of related by-laws to ensure the implementation of the police law; completing the construction of border crossing points at the Neum corridor; achieving the established recruitment target for border police for 2012; finalising and adopting the migration strategy with clearly defined measures for the integration of the most vulnerable groups of migrants; and increasing the capacity to translate and revise the acquis so that this task can be completed in time for accession.

Some German newspapers took this as proof that yet another country was being admitted to the EU unprepared and some members of the Bundestag echoed it in their speeches. EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele reacted by saying that the monitoring report was a wake-up call to Zagreb and not a call to media and parliaments of some member states.

That is why a good grade in the Commission's final report will be necessary for the smooth ratification of the treaty in some of the countries that have not yet done so.

The final report was initially planned for April, but the Commission has recently announced that it will publish it in the middle or second half of March to leave enough time for ratification by those countries that are waiting for the report.

Croatia will submit a report on the work done in meeting the ten remaining requirements to the European Commission by January 31.

In Brussels, preparations for Croatia's accession have already begun. In the city's Mini-Europe Park, a scale model of Zagreb's Church of St Mark will soon be included among miniature reproductions of landmarks from all member states.