"It was a nice, courtesy speech. He (Barroso) does not know when we will complete the negotiations either. We will all know it in three weeks' time... This is being agreed on between several capitals in the EU and that is a fact," said the leader of Croatia's strongest opposition party after Barroso's address in the Sabor.
We must be patient and in early May it will be known whether Croatia will have completed talks by the end of June, Milanovic said.
Asked by reporters to comment on Barroso's statement that the incumbent government had done the most in the accession negotiations with Brussels, the SDP chief said that it was the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)-led government that had begun the entry talks many years ago and that it had not managed to finish them yet.
"This is the only government that has conducted the negotiations over the last five years and logically, it is responsible for the results of the negotiations," he said.
Asked whether the EC President's call for a consensus of all political parties about the EU could be viewed as wind in PM Jadranka Kosor's sails coming from a politician from the European People's Party ranks, Milanovic answered that being an EPP member, Barroso was slightly more inclined to the right-of-centre parties, but being the EC President, he was objective and his speech today was "very objective and detached".