(ZAGREB) - Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon treaty will not slow down Croatia's accession talks during France's EU's presidency, the French ambassador in Zagreb said on Tuesday.

"The French presidency has no intentions to slow down membership talks because of the failure in Ireland," Ambassador François Saint-Paul told journalists.

In June Irish voters rejected the reform treaty aimed at streamlining EU institutions to cope with European Union expansion.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country on July 1 took over six-month EU presidency, cast doubts on the planned entry of the most advanced candidate Croatia because of the Irish vote.

But, the French diplomat said that Paris hoped that most of the remaining 15 of 35 chapters in talks with Croatia would be opened during its presidency.

"The pace of talks will principally depend on your efforts. It is our wish to open all or most of the remaining chapters," he said, adding that they "could be the difficult chapters."

He also stressed that the crisis within the EU sparked by the Irish 'No' "should not put a brake on the reforms in Croatia."

Croatian leaders said they were confident that the current crisis would not jeopardize the country's plans to join the bloc.

Croatia is set to become the EU's 28th member in 2010.

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