"We are not happy and we are sorry to see that the enlargement process will not go on at a desirable pace," Minister Rupel was quoted by the Slovene STA news agency as saying in Brussels.
The Slovene minister said that at the Brussels meeting of EU foreign ministers, he presented the Slovene position that Croatia was fully cooperating with the Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal.
"We believe that there is full cooperation and therefore we called those at the meeting who had a different opinion to support, together with us, the start of the accession negotiations," Rupel said.
He added that the fact that the foreign ministers adopted a negotiating framework as a basis for the talks with Croatia was "a positive message" to Croatia.
Rupel also welcomed a decision to introduce the controlling function of the EU Council, namely EU foreign ministers, for the further assessment of Croatia's cooperation with the Hague tribunal.
"If previously there were doubts as to who was to decide (on Croatia's cooperation), whether it was the tribunal's chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte or the EU Council, now there are no more ambiguities. It is the EU Council which will decide," Rupel said.
He, however, expressed fear that today's decision would also mean making criteria for EU membership more stringent.
The decision on the postponement of Croatia's entry talks was also the main topic of the Slovene broadcasting media on Wednesday afternoon.
The STA agency quoted the Croatian Ambassador to Ljubljana, Mario Nobilo as saying that the issue of growing Euroscepticism in Croatia was exaggerated in the Slovene media. This was rather a kind of "emotional shock," he said.
The Slovene media also described today's event in Brussels as a blow to the Ivo Sanader cabinet.