No special monitoring for Croatia after joining EU: Brussels

(VIENNA) - European Union Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele said Thursday Croatia would not be subject to the same special monitoring that Bulgaria and Romania were after they joined the EU in 2007.

"This time the Commission had no reason to propose to member states a monitoring system that will go beyond the accession date," Fuele said after meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger in the Austrian capital.

"We had no reason to propose a monitoring system which resembles the control and verification mecanism we have for the two countries that joined the EU recently," Fuele said.

Croatia took a giant step towards EU membership last week when, after six years of tough talks to become the bloc's 28th member, it won a green light from Brussels to join in mid-2013.

The next step will be for EU leaders to give their official rubber stamp at a summit June 23-24.

Croatia will be only the second former Yugoslav republic to join the EU after Slovenia in 2004, but the first that suffered the full force of the brutal wars that ravaged the Balkans in the 1990s.

Criticised for failing to tackle corruption, reform its judiciary, and bring Balkan war criminals to book, Croatia is to be "closely monitored" in continued eforts in those areas until accession, Fuele said recently.