Croatia had hoped to finish its accession negotiations by the end of this year and join the 27-country bloc in 2010 or 2011, but its progress has been delayed by the border dispute. The EU called off a round of accession talks at the end of June after its attempted mediation in the border row collapsed.Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee that Croatia must also cooperate fully with the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia on war crimes committed in the 1990s. "If Croatia meets the outstanding benchmarks in time, especially in relation to the judiciary and ICTY cooperation and if the border issue with Slovenia is resolved soon, we may be able to conclude the accession negotiations in the course of the first half of next year, 2010," he said.
Any country wishing to join the EU must meet its political and economic criteria, but Slovenia has blocked Croatia's entry talks since last December because of the border row. Rehn said the atmosphere between the two countries had improved and this was cause for a "certain cautious optimism" that their border dispute could be resolved soon.
Slovenia, the only former Yugoslav republic that has managed to join the EU, says documents which Croatia submitted as part of its accession talks prejudged the border dispute. Slovenia's prime minister, Borut Pahor, said after talks with Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor in July that a solution to the dispute could be found by the end of this year.
