"We think that developments (inside Croatia) over the last weeks have been such that it would be justified to start negotiations now," Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said in an interview with The Financial Times.
Although Austrian diplomats insist that the start of Turkey's EU entry talks, scheduled for October 3, should not be linked with the start of Croatia's EU entry talks, the pressure which Austria has been exerting to open talks with Croatia and its opposition to Ankara's future full EU membership, which it wants to replace with a 'privileged partnership', indicates that Vienna does not want the talks with Ankara to start before those with Zagreb.
An EU task force evaluating Croatia's cooperation with the UN tribunal will hear, probably on Sunday, the latest assessment by tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte, who is to visit Zagreb on September 30.
The task force is expected to hold a ministerial meeting after Del Ponte's visit to Zagreb and before a regular meeting of EU foreign ministers scheduled to take place in Luxembourg on October 3. The meeting will most probably be held on Sunday afternoon or evening.
The decision of the task force to meet before the meeting of the EU Council of Ministers may signal that Zagreb would be given a positive assessment of its cooperation with the tribunal, which the EU has set as a condition for the start of membership talks. If the task force concludes on the basis of the assessment by Del Ponte, who according to some indications could take part in the task force meeting, that Croatia is cooperating fully, there will be no more obstacles to launching membership talks and it will be up to the Council of Ministers to decide if the talks will start on the same day, October 3, or at a later date.