Brussels, 19/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - EU foreign ministers are to take stock of the state of progress of accession talks with Croatia on Monday 23 May at the General Affairs Council but the “time is not yet right for taking decisions” on the outcome of the talks, the spokesperson for Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle said on Thursday. In order to prepare Monday's ministerial debate, Füle briefed EU27 ambassadors on Thursday on the five last chapters remaining to be closed, including the two trickiest chapters: - judiciary and fundamental rights, and competition. Zagreb forwarded reports to Brussels last week on these two chapters, for which Croatia has many “closing benchmarks” to meet. The reports are now being assessed by the Commission. “It takes time” to make such an assessment, all the more as the Commission is waiting for “additional elements” (to be brought forward by the Croats but also by EU experts who visited the country last week) so that an opinion can be reached on the ability of the Croatian authorities to meet the criteria for closing the last chapter, Füle's spokesperson said. Considerable progress has been made by Croatia and the final phase of negotiations is coming closer, but the EU never sets a target date for the end of membership talks as these depend exclusively on the candidate country's ability to meet membership criteria, she said. It is a known fact that Croatia hopes to close the negotiations at the end of June and sign a membership treaty in November. Zagreb thus hopes to become the 28th member of the EU in January 2013. (H.B./transl.jl)