Croatia to sign EU entry on December 19: Poland

(WARSAW) - Croatia will seal its 2013 European Union entry in a ceremony in Warsaw on December 19, the bloc's current leader Poland said Thursday.

"We are in the process of sending invitations to EU members and institutions for the treaty-signing ceremony in Warsaw on December 19," Konrad Niklewicz, spokesman for Poland's EU presidency, told AFP.

On September 17, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk visited Croatia to hand his opposite number Jadranka Kosor a draft of the entry treaty.

Croatia wrapped up its six-year entry negotiations on June 30 and is scheduled to become the EU's 28th member on July 1, 2013.

It will be the second of six former Yugoslav republics to join, after Slovenia in 2004.

Poland, which took over the EU's six-month rotating presidency in July, had been particularly keen to seal Croatia's entry on its watch.

Part of the EU's 2004 "big-bang" expansion from 15 members, ex-communist Poland is a staunch supporter of membership for other countries from behind the former Iron Curtain.

On Thursday and Friday, Warsaw is hosting a summit of the EU's Eastern Partnership, launched in 2009 with the aim of boosting political and economic ties with ex-Soviet Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

Polish officials have said that the launch of association talks -- a first step to membership -- with Georgia and Moldova could be announced at the summit.