 Croatia is the first country entering the European Union after the accession process that differs in many ways from the previous rounds of enlargement. Croatia is the first country of degrees in early 80s who entering the European Union alone, the first country who negotiated 35 negotiating chapters, including Chapter 23, Judiciary and Fundamental Rights. And Croatia, if you will, is the first post-conflict country, if you don't take into account the founding members in early days of the Union, that it's joining the European Union. Also, Croatia is the first that negotiated through a very elaborated scheme of opening and closing benchmarks, 137 in total, and one could summarize Croatia's accession negotiations as elaborated pre-accession monitoring. Croatia will join the European Union on 1st July 2013, after 6 years of hard negotiations, thus becoming 28th Member State.