The two State Secretaries also discussed EU enlargement and, in particular, the ongoing negotiations for Croatia's membership.

Enlargement is one of the priorities of the Belgian Presidency. EU commitments, the level of preparedness of candidate countries and the new consensus on enlargement of 2006 will be the bases on which the Belgian Presidency's work will rest over the next six months. “Belgium will play the role of an honest broker and hopes to find, with pragmatism and determination, the compromises needed to move various dossiers forward,” added State Secretary Olivier Chastel.

Negotiations with Croatia began in October 2005. All of the chapters were opened during the Spanish Presidency with the exception of the “miscellaneous” and “institutional” chapters which will be dealt with during the home stretch. Twenty out of 35 chapters have been closed and 13 additional chapters are currently being negotiated.

Olivier Chastel told his Croatian counterpart Mr Andrej Plenkovic that “As the European Union must evaluate candidate countries based on their merits while fully complying with the conditions for the opening and closing of negotiations, setting a schedule was not compatible with this approach.” He added that Belgium was prepared to close as many chapters as possible by the end of the year, starting with Chapters 12 (food safety) and 32 (financial control). This will be accomplished during the Intergovernmental Conference which will be held as part of the General Affairs Council this Tuesday, 27th July.