Director-General for Enlargement Michael Leigh said after an inter-governmental conference on accession, which was held at the level of chief negotiators, that Croatia had achieved a high level of adjustment to the acquis communautaire in this area.
The fact that we could open such an important chapter as this one shows that the negotiating process is making good progress. In this chapter Croatia has achieved a high level of alignment with the acquis, but the key thing will be the implementation of laws on intellectual property, Leigh told reporters in Brussels.
Croatia will have to meet two benchmarks before provisionally closing the negotiations on this chapter. The first benchmark requires completion of adjustment of legislation governing this matter, while the second one requires introduction of mechanisms to implement the relevant legislation.
Leigh said that the European Commission would be closely monitoring progress in the implementation of the legislation and only after it assessed that good progress had been made would it be possible to close the negotiations.
Croatian chief negotiator Vladimir Drobnjak said he was pleased with the progress of the negotiations.
I think that with the six chapters that have been opened so far, two of which have been provisionally closed, we can be pleased with the overall pace of negotiations which are going in a good direction, Drobnjak said.
Drobnjak said that Croatia's main goal this year was to submit as many negotiating positions as possible, meet as many benchmarks as possible and open as many chapters as possible.
Along with the six negotiating positions on the chapters that have been opened, Croatia has submitted another eight positions.
The German EU Presidency issued a statement welcoming the progress in negotiations with Croatia and Turkey, which opened the Enterprise and Industrial Policy chapter on Thursday after a lengthy pause.