The ministers met on Tuesday, ahead of Wednesday's summit which will also be attended by Croatian President Stjepan Mesic.
At Wednesday's summit, the current SEECP chair, Romania, will hand over the chairmanship of the SEECP to Greece and after Greece the one year chairmanship will be taken over by Croatia, sources in the Croatian delegation taking part in today's meeting reported.
In her speech at the meeting, a State Secretary in the Croatian Foreign and European Integration Ministry, Marijka Pejcinovic Buric, commented on progress of SEECP member countries in European integration processes and on areas which Croatia through were the priority -- judiciary and home affairs, the development of infrastructure and environmental protection.
She said Croatia invested maximum efforts in meeting the only remaining condition for the start of negotiations with the European Union and that it hoped the talks would be launched soon. The state secretary stressed Croatia also hoped that the promotion of good-neighbourly relations, stability and cooperation in Southeast Europe would condition, stressing that this was a condition for development, progress and stabilisation of the region in European integration processes, the same sources reported.
The meeting also focused on the political situation and the latest events in Southeast Europe with a special emphasis of the achievements of member countries in the process of drawing closer to the EU. Many countries expressed hope that Croatia would start EU entry talks as soon as possible and continue to be an example of a democratic stability to other countries in the region.
Tomorrow's summit in Bucharest will be attended by the presidents and prime ministers of nine countries - Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania.
Croatia is attending the summit for the first time as a full member after it signed the Charter on Good-Neighbourly relations, Stability, Security and Cooperation in late 2004.