Greece is annoyed because Croatia has recognised the Macedonian national minority and the Macedonian Orthodox Church, therefore it is more likely Athens to block the opening of a new chapter of Croatia's membership talks, Split-based newspaper "Slobodna Dalmacija" reports.

The daily citing "unofficial, but confidential information", claims that Greece might block the start of the negotiations in terms of the chapter of judiciary, because the Macedonian minority is mentioned in it.

"Slobodna Dalmacija" says that even though Foreign Ministry spokesman Mario Dragun said he had no information on any announcements about a blockade from Greece, talks are being held about the issue behind closed doors.

The newspaper points out that Greece vetoed Macedonia's accession to NATO and the country's headway in the EU entry talks, which "prevents this candidate country from obtaining a date for membership talks for years."

- The reason for the veto was the fact that Macedonia calls itself Macedonia, which bothers Greece because  according to Athens, it allegedly shows pretensions towards its territory. Besides that, Greece on its own territory refuses to recognise the existence of what they call 'Slavic' minority, which in fact is comprised of  large number of Macedonians, says "Slobodna Dalmacija".  //01.29.09