During the second half of 2010, when Belgium chaired the EU, Croatia opened one policy chapter and provisionally closed eight, so at the end of 2010 Croatia had 34 negotiating areas opened and 28 of them provisionally closed.
Thus, seven policy chapters remain to be closed.
Foreign Ministry State Secretary Andrej Plenkovic said that so far Croatia had fulfilled 99 out of a total of 127 benchmarks for the opening and closing of negotiating areas within its EU membership talks.
According to him, a conference on benchmarks for the Judiciary and Fundamental Rights policy chapter, scheduled for 9 March in Strasbourg, is expected to give a better insight into the pace of closing that "crucial chapter".
Plenkovic recalled the Croatian government's ambition to wrap up the EU accession negotiations by the end of June.