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EU commissioner Olli Rehn, in charge of enlargement, said the Macedonian government should see the move as "very strong encouragement" to "finally settle the name issue," however. The reference concerns an 18-year old dispute between Macedonia and neighbouring Greece about the use of the name Macedonia.

Croatia, hoping to join the EU in 2011, is "nearing the finishing line" after years of negotiations, said Mr Rehn, but needs to further tackle corruption and organised crime "before negotiations can be concluded."

The commission report urges Turkey to do more to ensure freedom of expression and freedom of religion as well as bolster the rights of women and trade unions.

Ankara has been lagging far behind Zagreb in its EU progress in part due to poor relations with EU member Cyprus, with whom it still has to fully implement a customs agreement. Progress is also slow due to a lack of enthusiasm on the part of several member states for Turkish membership and the pace of Turkish domestic reform.

Of the remaining five entities - Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo - that want to join the EU, Mr Rehn had the most to say about Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The war-torn country was recently given an ultimatum by the EU and the US to sort out internal problems between Bosnian Muslims, Croats and Serbs by 20 October.

Defining the country as of "paramount importance for the region and for the European Union," Mr Rehn said that Bosnia and Herzegovina could only consider an application for EU membership once it "can stand on its own two feet."

"No quasi-protectorate can join the EU," he said, spelling out that the Office of High Representative would have to be closed down first. The post was created as part of the peace deal that ended the 1992-1995 war in the country, and can only be closed after a positive international assessment.

Meanwhile, the Serbian government, which is being pushed to arrest two war crimes suspects from the 1990s, was praised for being "stable" and "demonstrating" a high degree of consensus on EU integration as a strategic priority."

But even as the EU tries to bind all of the countries of the western Balkans and Turkey ever more closely through political and economic ties and the promise of eventual membership, there are continuous doubts about whether it has the political appetite to go through with another large round of expansion.

Apart from Croatia, strongly supported by Germany and where EU membership is virtually assured, internal EU question marks remain over the rest.

Croatia, hoping to be the European Union's next country to join the bloc, resumes membership negotiations on Friday (2 October).

The talks are being restarted now that a border dispute between the former Yugoslav nation and its neighbour and EU member state Slovenia is to be put to arbitration overseen by Brussels.

The 27-country bloc and Croatia are expected to open six new chapters of the 35 policy areas that are up for negotiation at an intergovernmental accession conference in the European capital.

It is also believed that an additional five may be closed on Friday as well.

If the results live up to diplomat expectations, Zagreb will have opened 28 chapters and closed 12 as of the end of the day.

The parliamentary committee on EU affairs in Ljubljana voted unanimously on Tuesday (29 September) in favour of lifting the veto, the Croatian news agency Hina reported. 

The move follows a decision by the two countries' prime ministers, who recently said the border dispute that had poisoned their relations should not present an obstacle to proceeding with Croatia's EU accession negotiations.

Slovenia said Friday it was ready to lift its veto on neighbour Croatia's European Union accession talks immediately, after the two prime ministers agreed on how to solve an 18-year old border dispute.

"The government will immediately propose (to parliamentary committees) that Slovenia removes restraints for Croatia's EU negotiating process," Slovenia's Prime Minister Borut Pahor said after talks with his Croat counterpart Jadranka Kosor.

The two committees met later Friday but said they needed more time to consider the issue. They are expected to decide on whether to allow Slovenia to lift the veto early next week.

The news comes as a boost to Zagreb -- whose EU bid has been on ice for almost 10 months -- and other EU hopefuls in the Western Balkans, where bilateral disputes abound.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country holds the rotating six-month presidency of the EU, welcomed the agreement and said Croatia can now continue EU accession talks.

The European Commission said it regretted that Croatia and Slovenia had failed to make progress in talks on the settlement of their border row, underlining that it was a bilateral issue. 

The talks had progressed well since January and there remained only a limited number of points to be settled, but the two sides yesterday failed to make progress on those points, says a brief statement issued by Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn’s office. Rehn will now report to the current Czech and future Swedish EU Presidencies, it adds. 

Background:

Yet another round of talks on the longstanding border dispute between Croatia and Slovenia failed on Wednesday (27 May) increasing the pressure on Zagreb's EU membership timetable.

It was the first meeting between EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn and the foreign ministers of Slovenia and Croatia since the two countries presented their responses to the latest Brussels proposal aimed at solving the bilateral quarrel.

The 18-year-old border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia reached a turning point in December when Slovenia blocked Croatia's EU accession talks over the issue.

The blockage prompted Mr Rehn to intervene and suggest a mediation proposal to help break the deadlock.

In the latest version of his proposal, the commissioner suggested the countries should solve their dispute via a five-member international arbitration tribunal that would operate in line with international law – a point Croatia has been strongly pushing for.

Background:

Zagreb has accepted EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn's latest proposal aimed at solving the lengthy border dispute between Croatia and Slovenia, currently blocking Croatia's EU membership talks.

"We will inform Olli Rehn in the next 24 hours. Essentially, we are accepting this proposal," Croatian president Stjepan Mesic said after a meeting with Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and the leaders of the political parties in Zagreb.

But while Croatia has accepted the proposal, Slovenia's reaction has been much more reserved.

Ljubljana says it is still analysing it and will reply after 10 May. The heads of the country's political parties will meet on Wednesday, while the government is to discuss it on Thursday.

"Consultations are ongoing... We don't see it as a ‘take it or leave it' proposal," one diplomatic source told EUobserver.

"We recall the urgency attached to this issue," Czech deputy prime minister Alexandr Vondra, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said at a press conference following a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg where Croatia's EU progress was discussed.

"Many member states feel a certain sense of urgency, that the stalemate cannot last forever, that very much is at stake ... the whole strategic concept towards the Western Balkans, as well as other disputes," Mr Vondra added.

The structural reforms Croatia still needs to carry out are more likely to hold up its EU membership bid than the current border dispute with Slovenia, a senior EU official has warned.

"I would be more concerned about structural reforms [in Croatia]" than about the border dispute, Vincent Degert, head of the European Commission's delegation in Croatia told a group of journalists in Zagreb on Monday (20 April).

Mr Degert spoke about justice reform, as well as the need to restructure Croatia's shipyards and the agriculture sector, as some of the key areas where progress is still needed.

"These are the hardcore reforms," he said, with Croatia hoping to finish membership negotiations within the next eight months and enter the EU by 2011.

MEPs adopted a resolution on Thursday (12 March) calling on member states to set a date for opening accession talks with Macedonia this year.

In a resolution adopted by MEPs with 478 votes in favour and 92 against, the European Parliament said it "regrets …that, three years after it [Macedonia] was granted the status of candidate for membership of the EU, accession negotiations have not yet started, which is an unsustainable situation having demotivating effects for the country, and risks destabilising the region."

Macedonia was granted the status of EU candidate in December 2005, but accession talks have not been opened ever since, mainly due to Greece.

Athens has refused to recognise its neighbour's constitutional name - the Republic of Macedonia - since it declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

Talks between Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor and his Croatian counterpart Ivo Sanader held yesterday (24 February) in the Slovenian town of Mokrice failed to achieve tangible results, media from the two countries reported. 

Until there is progress in solving the border dispute, Slovenia will continue to block Croatia's EU accession negotiations, Pahor reportedly said. 

The two countries did not even agree on a framework for dealing with the conflict. Slovenia supports EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn's preference for Brussels mediation, while Croatia maintains that the border issue should be solved before an international court. However, that option could take several years, while Zagreb wants to join the Union in 2010. 

During the French EU Presidency, Slovenia blocked the opening of nine out of ten negotiating chapters with Zagreb due to an unresolved border dispute (EurActiv 18/12/08). Diplomats believe serious doubts will surround Croatia's objective of wrapping up accession talks by the end of the year (so as to be ready to join the bloc in 2010) if the bilateral dispute is not resolved soon (see EurActiv LinksDossier on EU-Croatia relations). 

The border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia concerns small pockets of land along the Adriatic coast, which could prove important if accompanied by exclusive rights to deep sea zones. Unlike Slovenia, Croatia has a long coastline, prompting Ljubljana to attempt to assert its rights as a "geographically disadvantaged state". 

Slovenia and Croatia should work on finding a solution to their year-long border dispute if Zagreb's EU membership negotiations are to stand a chance of making progress during an EU-Croatia meeting next month, the EU enlargement commissioner has said.

"It is important that in the next accession conference which is planned for March ... [it is possible] to open, maybe close, but at least open a number of chapters, so that the dynamic of the negotiations will be kept on," commissioner Olli Rehn said at a press conference in Brussels on Friday (20 February).

Slovenia and Croatia have been unable to agree on their common land and sea border since they both seceded from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

But a patch of the Adriatic Sea close to the Slovenian city of Piran, which Slovenia says would secure its ships direct access to international waters, is a particularly thorny issue that caused Ljubljana to block the opening or closing of 11 chapters of Croatia's 35-chapter package in December.

"It is important that we find a solution that could help solve the border issue and would allow Croatia's EU accession negotiations to continue according to the negotiating framework," Mr Rehn said.

Slovenia and Croatia have been unable to agree on their common land and sea border since they both seceded from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

Particularly thorny is a patch of the Adriatic Sea close to the Slovenian city of Piran that would secure Slovenian ships direct access to international waters.

In December, Ljubljana blocked the opening or closing of 11 chapters of Croatia's 35-chapter EU accession negotiations package over the issue.