Skare-Ozbolt and Interior Minister Marijan Mlinaric attended an informal meeting of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council. Such meetings are attended also by ministers from nonmember countries.
The main topic of meetings the two Croatian ministers held with their counterparts today was cooperation with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Skare-Ozbolt told the press she based her optimism regarding the start of the entry talks on what she had heard from the European ministers. "They can see that Croatia is developing and trying to meet the last requirement, full cooperation with the Hague tribunal."
Skare-Ozbolt and Mlinaric held talks with European Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini and the ministers of justice Luca Frieden of Luxembourg, Lovro Sturm of Slovenia, Brigitte Zypries of Germany and Charles Clark of Great Britain.
Frattini told the press the two Croatian ministers had assured him of the country's full cooperation with the UN court. He said it was of the utmost importance that acceding countries cooperated with the UN court fully and transparently.
He said the EU wanted Croatia among its members but expected it to invest considerable effort in meeting European criteria, which he added referred to cooperation with the Hague tribunal as well as cooperation in preventing and combating all forms of organised crimes, notably drug and human trafficking.
Minister Mlinaric said Croatia was the only country in the region whose interior ministry had made considerable headway in border management by upgrading border police through cooperation with Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
He added the Interior Ministry would be ready, in cooperation with the EU and by implementing other projects, to fully protect the south-eastern border once Croatia joined the Union.
The Union's justice and interior ministers gathered in Luxembourg today for a two-day informal meeting to address the implementation of the Hague programme, which the European Council adopted at last November's summit. The five-year programme focuses on the development of cooperation in justice and home affairs.