Brussels, 24/03/2009 (Agence Europe) - The dispute between Croatia and Slovenia is threatening to further push back Croatia's accession timetable, which aims to conclude talks by the end of the year. On Tuesday, the Czech Presidency announced that the next negotiating meeting with the Croatian negotiator (accession conference), programmed for Friday 27 March, had been postponed until 24 April. The presidency hopes to be able to unblock the dossier by then, with the assistance of the Commission, which suggested setting up an experts' group presided by Martti Ahtisaari to try and “facilitate” finding a solution to the border conflict between the two countries. The two countries have given their in-principle agreement to European mediation but there are still divergent opinions on the exact mandate of the group (trilateral discussions between Zagreb, Ljubljana and the European Commission are continuing this week). So far, 12 chapters in accession negotiations have been blocked by Slovenia (nine to open and three to close). (H.B./transl.rh)