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Most viewed in Foreign affairs
On Croatia, the European Council's conclusions welcome the establishment on Monday of a working group tasked with drafting the country's accession treaty, which is to begin its work in the coming weeks. Croatia is expected to enter the Union in January 2012, although the Union does not want to commit itself to a date yet.
On Iceland, which submitted a membership application in July, the leaders noted that the country was already “closely integrated” with the EU in several areas. Membership talks are expected to start next year.
On Albania, the conclusions say that much work remains to be done. The Commission is currently assessing the country's readiness for membership negotiations. It is expected that the Commission's findings will be available at the end of next year or in early 2011.
On Montenegro, the conclusions welcomed progress in many areas. The Commission is expected in the first half of next year to recommend the opening of accession talks.
On Bosnia and Herzegovina, the member states remain “concerned” about the political situation and express their support for the work of Valentin Inzko, the EU's special envoy. EU foreign ministers this week failed to discuss the future of the EU's peacekeeping mission, which most troop contributors want to transform into a far smaller advisory mission. They agreed to revisit the issue in January.
On Serbia, the conclusions lift a block on an interim trade agreement after the Netherlands agreed with the other EU member states that Serbia was co-operating sufficiently with a United Nations war-crimes court. The foreign ministers agreed earlier this week to discuss the ratification of Serbia's main pre-accession agreement in six months' time.
On Kosovo, the conclusions stress that the overall situation remains “fragile” but that measures to support Kosovo's “progress towards the EU” should be implemented without prejudice to the fact that five member states have not recognised Kosovo as an independent country.
The leaders are “very pleased” with the scrapping of visa requirements for citizens of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, which will take effect on 19 December.
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