Croatia's EU membership talks and their prospective conclusion were one of the topics on the agenda of Van Rompuy's meeting with Slovenia's Prime Minister Borut Pahor. The European Council President arrived in Ljubljana to give his support to Pahor ahead of Sunday's referendum on the planned pension reform in that EU member state.
At a news conference he held with his host, Van Rompuy said Croatia had made great progress in its accession negotiations with the EU over the recent months and that he was optimistic about the completion of the negotiations as the EU always insisted on assessing aspirants according to their own merits.
He commended Slovenia for having ratified the border arbitration agreement with Croatia, paving the way for the continuation of Croatia's EU membership talks which he said would soon be over.
Pahor said that the border arbitration agreement was also beneficial both to Slovenia and Croatia and that his country was also in favour of the completion of Croatia's EU entry talks as soon as possible.
"Slovenia finds that Croatia has met the benchmarks for the completion of the negotiations. We would like to see the completion of the negotiations as soon as possible, in June or in July at the latest," Pahor said.
Asked by reporters how much closer Serbia was to the EU membership after it arrested Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, accused of war crimes, the European Council chief said that it was a very important step made in the right direction.
Now discussions are under way on granting Serbia the status of a candidate country, and Serbia will have to meet all other criteria and demands which candidates have to meet on their way to the EU, he added.