Only a few hours after a couple of respective green lights were given by the International War Crimes Court and the special Task Force for Croatia’s EU accession, the EU opened membership talks with Croatia, according to Peter Gatterwe at Bank Austria Creditanstalt AG (BA-CA).
The entering into Croatia’s accession talks was held up until just after midnight on Monday, October 3rd, 2005, when EU ministers finally managed to end two days of sharp disputes over a mandate for Turkish entry negotiations. “We have made a historic decision on behalf of Croatia and have begun the accession negotiations,” British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, told a news conference. Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader told reporters in Luxembourg: “This is a great day for Croatia.”
EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said the pace of entry negotiations would be largely determined by the pace of reforms in Croatia. Asked about a previous European Commission forecast that Croatia could enter the EU by 2009, Rehn said: “I think the exact date is not so relevant.”