Croatia's European Union accession negotiations are on the right track to completion, the focus now being on finalising work in six chapters, or policy areas, chief Croatian negotiator Vladimir Drobnjak said in Brussels on Thursday after a working meeting with EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele.
Croatia has opened all 33 chapters and has provisionally closed 22. In five of the 11 chapters that are yet to be closed, the work has been completed and needs formal approval.
The EU acquis communautaire is divided into 35 chapters, and two of them -- Chapter 34 (Institutions) and Chapter 35 (Other Issues) -- are not subject to negotiations because they contain no laws that need to be transposed into national legislation.
Chapter 34, which defines institutional issues such as the number of deputies in the European Parliament, is expected to be opened and closed at the next intergovernmental accession conference scheduled for November 5.
Chapter 4 (Free Movement of Capital) and Chapter 14 (Transport Policy) are also expected to be closed at that conference, while the chapters dealing with Justice, Freedom and Security and with Environment should be closed by the end of the year.
When asked if the EU shared the optimism that Croatia would conclude accession negotiations next spring and sign the accession treaty by the end of the Hungarian presidency in June, Drobnjak replied affirmatively.
"Our colleagues are optimistic about it, but of course no one wants to officially confirm it for the simple reason that in the coming months it is hard to predict whether everything will be done on time considering the amount of documents," Drobnjak said.
Drobnjak said that today's meeting did not discuss the latest activities of the Croatian government in fighting corruption. "In Chapter 23 - Judiciary and Fundamental Rights, there was no talk about concrete issues, only about the benchmarks we need to meet."
