EU: The European Commission has opened detailed accession talks with officials from Turkey and Croatia in the first stage of a process that will take years to complete.
Commission officials spent much of the first day yesterday laying out the format of the accession negotiations, which start with a technical process known as "screening".
Screening involves setting out a detailed examination of EU laws to the candidate countries and inviting them to explain how they plan to transpose them into national law.
The task of transposing EU law, which runs to about 80,000 pages of legislation, into national law will be monitored and later evaluated by member states. Turkey and Croatia will both have to convince all member states that they have fully met the accession criteria laid down in 35 separate areas, known as chapters, before they can join.
An EU official said that the screening process would take at least a year but negotiations on some less controversial chapters could begin before the process ends.
Commission officials yesterday explained EU legislation in the area of science and research to Turkish and Croatian officials.
Next week screening of the chapter on education and culture is expected to begin followed by a chapter on public procurement.
The start of talks with Turkey has proved controversial for some member states, particularly Austria. Earlier this month Vienna threatened to derail the start of talks in October, even though the date had been agreed by all member states in December 2004.
Vienna expressed public concerns about the EU's ability to absorb Turkey, which has a population of 70 million and would become one of the most populous member states.
The incoming German chancellor, Angela Merkel, also favours a "privileged partnership" with Turkey rather than full EU membership.
This has led some commentators to predict that the predominantly Muslim state may never be allowed to join the EU, despite first applying to join more than 40 years ago.
Croatia's attempt to join the EU is expected to pose fewer problems for member states than the question of Turkey. However, it will have to continue to convince the EU that it is co-operating with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to catch suspected war criminals from the Balkans conflict in the early 1990s.