Judiciary only challenge on Croatia's EU path: Commissioner

(ZAGREB) - The reform of the judiciary remains the only challenge on Croatia's path towards the European Union, which is in its final phase, the bloc's Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said here on Thursday.

"The only real problems which remain are the problems in chapter 23," on judiciary, Reding told journalists.

Croatia has already closed 28 of the 35 so-called policy chapters that every nation must negotiate with the EU before becoming a member. Zagreb hopes to wrap up accession talks by July and become a full member in 2012.

"All the remaining chapters are been negotiated and are coming to a close. Some chapters need officially still to be closed, but there are no more main problems which remain in those," Reding stressed.

Apart from the reform of Croatia's legal institutions, including battling corruption, Brussels insists on restructuring of the country's ailing state-run shipyards.

Reding spoke a day after a European Commission published a report saying more should be done if Zagreb wants to join the EU.

Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said the report sent a "strong message of hope and encouragement", and added that Zagreb would announce new measures to comply with Brussels.

"Today we will make some new decisions and prepare a new framework by Monday," she told a press conference.

"The most important message (from Brussels) is that the doors for Croatia to wrap up accession talks by the end of June are opened.

"If we do our best we will go through that door," Kosor emphasised.

In the interim report the European Commission noted that Croatia had made great strides but "further work remains to be done, in particular to establish convincing track-records in the field of the judiciary and the fight against corruption."

The report also called on Zagreb to do more "to address impunity for war crimes and to settle the outstanding refugee return issues", relating to the 1991-95 Croatia conflict.

Reding, in Zagreb to attend a conference on Croatia's accession to the 27-nation bloc, also remained upbeat about the report.

"The interim report adopted yesterday... stated very clearly and on each point that there has been impressive progress" made on implementing judicial reforms.

However Reding stressed that new legislation had to be "followed by concrete action".

So far Slovenia is the only one of the countries that emerged from the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s to have become a member.