De Gucht and his Croatian counterpart Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic told a joint news conference they had talked about Euro-Atlantic integration, bilateral cooperation, the region, and tomorrow's presentation of the draft final solution for Kosovo.
De Gucht said Belgium had supported Croatia's European Union entry from the start and was pleased that the EU had separated Croatia's and Turkey's accession talks.
He insisted that the EU must reform its institutions, such as the decision-making process, in order for enlargement to continue.
That is why you should not view this as a way to postpone Croatia's EU accession. On the contrary, people welcome your accession, said De Gucht.
Grabar-Kitarovic said Belgium supported the notion that Croatia should join the EU based on its own merits and that it acknowledged Croatia's achievements.
Belgian-Croatian trade in 2006 was USD272 million, she said and applauded with her Belgian counterpart the arrival of a new crane to the Vukovar port in March for which Belgium had donated 450,000 euros.
De Gucht called for finding out why the excellent bilateral relations were not reflected in investment. We are concerned about the fact that Belgian banks cannot invest in Croatia, for utterly strange reasons, he said.
Good banking relations are very important and Croatia and Slovenia should have such relations, he said alluding to outstanding issues between the two neighbours and recalling that business people and the industry followed the situation with banks and then decided about investing.
Grabar-Kitarovic said that in 2004 the Flemish government included Croatia in its pre-accession aid programme and that the amount for this year was 500,000 euros. She also added that Belgium had donated more than half a million euros to the Croatian Mine Action Centre.
De Gucht is on a two-day visit to Zagreb. He previously visited Belgrade.