The head of the European Union's Delegation to Croatia, Ambassador Paul Vandoren, has said that it is still impossible to say "if Croatia will complete European Union entry talks by the end of June as the government hopes, mainly due to talks on the judiciary and state shipyards," the Reuters news agency reported on Friday.
"Nobody can say at the moment if it is feasible to end talks by June. It is an ambitious goal. In any case, I must say that the government is making good progress in meeting the benchmarks it needs to satisfy before the talks are concluded," Vandoren was quoted as saying.
In mid-March, the European Commission will publish a report on Croatia's progress in the judiciary, and Vandoren said he hoped that the European Union's executive arm would be able to soon express its opinion on the feasibility of Croatia's plans "to restructure its heavily subsidised shipyards".
"We're in a such an advanced stage of negotiations and, if the talks are not completed by June, we will continue the process until it is brought to a good end," Vandoren said.
Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, which is presiding over the 27-strong European bloc, has recently said that Croatia can expect the EU to announce in April a date for the completion of its EU entry talks.
However, the EU ambassador told Reuters that at this moment he could not tell "what the Commission will say in the coming weeks. A meaningful discussion on the date will be possible only if the March assessment will be positive. If the talks will not be completed by June, it will be only because the required benchmarks will not have been met."
