Croatia resumes EU talks as Slovenia ends embargo

(BRUSSELS) - Croatia resumed its EU membership talks Friday after Slovenia ended a 10-month embargo on the negotiations because of a border dispute between the Balkan neighbours, senior officials announced.

At a ministerial accession conference in Brussels, the EU and Croatia opened six new chapters -- or policy negotiating areas -- of the 35 that all candidates must complete to join, the official confirmed.

"We have opened six chapters," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, said after the meeting. "Very substantial progress has been made. It's a critical day."

"It's a signal for the entire (Balkans) region and a signal of the process of European integration continuing to move forward," he added.

The chapters were: free movement of capital; agriculture and rural development; justice, freedom and security; food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy; taxation; and regional policy and coordination of structural instruments.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said: "We are talking about a significant breakthrough in Croatia's accession process."

"This shows that work has been done, and progress has been made in Croatia," he said.

Rehn has expressed hope that Croatia might be able to complete the negotiating process by the middle of next year.

Croatian foreign minister Gordan Jandrokovic underlined that Zagreb remained "committed to full cooperation" with the UN's Balkan war-crimes court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Rehn said "concrete progress" was expected regarding ongoing investigations and ICTY access to documents held by Croatia.

Chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz will shortly report on Zagreb's cooperation to the United Nations.

Negotiations have reached a conclusion on 12 other chapters, not five as Bildt had earlier stated, according to Slovenia's foreign minister Samuel Zbogar.

In three of those areas -- fisheries, the environment and foreign policy and security -- Ljubliana still holds "reservations," he said, although he stressed these "are not related to our border differences."

Zbogar was to meet separately with Jandrokovic on an 18-year-old border dispute that had held up Croatia's progress since December, and on which Slovenia had insisted a resolution be found before accession negotiations could resume.

The row involving a small piece of land and sea dates back to 1991, when the two proclaimed independence from the former Yugoslavia.

Slovenia joined the EU in 2004 and Croatia had hoped to become the EU's 28th member by 2011, but that timetable has been under a cloud.