Croatia will seal its 2013 European Union entry in a ceremony in Warsaw onDecember 19, the bloc's current leader Poland said Thursday.

 

"We are in the process of sending invitations to EU members and institutions for the treaty-signing ceremony in Warsaw on December 19," Konrad Niklewicz, spokesman for Poland's EU presidency, told AFP.

 

On September 17, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk visited Croatia to hand his opposite number Jadranka Kosor a draft of the entry treaty.

 

Croatia wrapped up its six-year entry negotiations on June 30 and is scheduled to become the EU's 28th member on July 1, 2013.

 

Croatia will be the second of six former Yugoslav republics to join the EU, after Slovenia in 2004.

 

Poland, which took over the EU's six-month rotating presidency in July, had been particularly keen to seal Croatia's entry on its watch.

 

Source: AFP