Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi on Monday reiterated once again that one of the priorities of Hungary's EU presidency was to have Croatia's EU entry negotiations completed by the end of June 2011, adding that he was optimistic about that.
We reduced our ambitions a little bit because several months ago we wanted to have an Accession Treaty with Croatia signed during our EU presidency, possibly in Hungary. Now we realised that this is no longer possible, that even the translation of the Accession Treaty requires time, so we modified our plan a little and now we want to wrap up the negotiations by the end of our presidency, Martonyi told a news conference in Brussels, where he presented the priorities of the future rotating EU presidency.
Hungary is the third EU president in a row to emphasise that it wanted to wrap up the negotiations with Croatia. Martonyi said this was a complex process and that he was not blaming anyone for the fact that the talks have not yet been finished.
Hungary will take over the EU presidency from Belgium on 1 January 2011. During Belgium's EU presidency, Croatia has so far closed five chapters and on Wednesday, at the very end of the current rotating presidency, Zagreb is expected to close negotiations on another three chapters.
