Turkey and Croatia began the long slog of detailed negotiations to join the European Union when officials from the European Commission and the two candidate states started comparing EU and national legislation.

The process, known as screening, is expected to last about a year, with EU experts explaining the 25-nation bloc's 80,000 pages of law and assessing the compatibility of the applicant countries' legislation with EU rules.

The talks began with a joint session at which EU officials briefed Turkish and Croatian officials on the procedure.

They set out European legislative requirements in the relatively easy areas of research and science, an EU spokeswoman said.

Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said this week that Zagreb was in no hurry. Croatia is not expected to join the EU before 2009 and Turkey until at least 2015.