At a news conference in Zagreb Ambassador Barreiros presented the fundamental priorities of Portugal's six-month presidency of the bloc.
We will do all that we can to accelerate the process of Croatia's joining the European Union and the European treaty will most definitely remove the clouds hanging over the chances for enlargement to include Croatia, Barreiros said.
The existing Treaty of Nice was design for 27 countries at the most and Croatia would make the 28th member.
However, you have to be aware that negotiations have their own cycle, the ambassador said.
He added that a member country submits its negotiating positions for individual chapters after which the European Commission adopts its negotiating positions, with benchmarks for some chapters. In other words, this process requires a lot of time, he said.
It is necessary to submit as many documents as possible on various chapters so that they could be delivered by the end of the first week in September at the latest, Barreiros said, adding that in that case the European Commission and EU member states would have enough time to analyse each chapter.