"I would like all chapters to be opened. Croatia is doing its best for that to happen, but it is up to member-states to verify our achievements, and I believe they have enough good arguments to open all policy chapters in April," Jandrokovic said after a meeting of the Croatia-EU Stabilisation and Association Council, the highest joint body supervising the implementation of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement.

Croatia has so far opened 30 of 33 policy areas of the EU acquis communautaire that are negotiated. The chapters that remain to be opened are Judiciary and Fundamental Rights; Competition Policy; and Foreign, Security and Defence Policy.

The Spanish State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Angel Lossada, who headed the EU delegation at today's meeting, said that the Spanish EU Presidency, whose term ends on June 30, wanted to see the remaining unopened chapters opened and as many as possible provisionally closed.

At the next intergovernmental accession conference in April, Croatia is expected to close negotiations on two policy areas - Free Movement of Goods and Taxation.

Slovenian Foreign Minister Samuel Zbogar said in Brussels on Monday that it was still uncertain if the chapter Foreign, Security and Defence Policy, about whose opening Slovenia still has reservations, would be ready for opening in April.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele said at a conference on the Western Balkans, organised by Croatia and Slovenia at Brdo Pri Kranju this past weekend, that a step had been made towards opening the Foreign, Security and Defence Policy chapter.

We strongly believe that the conference at Brdo Pri Kranju represents a step closer to finding a way to open that chapter during the Spanish EU presidency, he said.

Minister Jandrokovic said today it was good that the Slovenian Constitutional Court had ruled that the Croatian-Slovenian border arbitration agreement was in line with the Slovenian constitution.

"For us it is important that the Slovenian Parliament ratifies the arbitration agreement as soon as possible, so that we can settle, in a civilised way, that issue which has been unresolved for almost 20 years," Jandrokovic said.

Lossada said the Slovenian Constitutional Court's ruling was good news, adding that it would help the border arbitration agreement enter into force.

A joint statement issued after the session of the Stabilisation and Association Council reads that the accession talks with Croatia have progressed well and entered their final phase.

"The Stabilisation and Association Council commends Croatia for the considerable efforts it has made over the past year, and the good progress made, in particular in meeting the benchmarks set in the negotiations," reads the statement, welcoming also the establishment of a task force in charge of making a draft accession treaty with Croatia and the adoption of a financial package for the first two years of Croatia's membership of the EU.

In its position prepared for today's meeting of the Croatia-EU Stabilisation and Association Council, the EU said that Croatia had made significant progress in its EU accession talks which were entering their final stage, and that for the talks to be successfully completed this year, Croatia had to continue its reform efforts, in particular in key areas such as the rule of law, public administration and economy.

"Building on the progress already made, Croatia must continue its reform efforts, in particular in key areas such as judiciary and public administration, the fight against corruption and organised crime, respect for and protection of minorities, including the return of refugees, prosecution of war crimes and in pursuing further economic reforms, to build up a convincing track record in these areas," the document says, adding that addressing the above reforms, as well as meeting all outstanding benchmarks in time will be essential for Croatia if it wants to meet its objective to conclude accession negotiations in 2010.