Croatia’s Justice Minister thinks that Croatia will open the judiciary chapter of its EU accession negotiations in June

Croatia’s Justice Minister Ivan Simonovic is optimistic that Croatia will open the judiciary chapter of its EU accession negotiations in June, and will be able to wrap up talks by the end of the year. In an interview with Europolitics Tuesday (May 11th), Simonovic said that a special monitoring mechanism for the judiciary that was introduced for Bulgaria and Romania will not be necessary in Croatia’s case. He also predicted that in the upcoming report by UN war crimes tribunal chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz on Croatia’s co-operation, Brammertz will be somewhat dissatisfied with Zagreb’s efforts to find the so-called “artillery diaries”, documents related to the military’s 1995 Operation Storm. Croatia has delivered some of the documents, but not all. Simonovic reiterated that authorities are doing their best to find the material.