The conference was opened by a State Secretary in the Foreign and European Integration Ministry, Marija Pejcinovic-Buric, and the head of the operational department of the Delegation of the European Commission in Croatia, Oskar Benedikt.
"Pre-accession funds are part of the pre-accession strategy and they are earmarked for assisting candidate countries to prepare for EU membership. The successful use of these funds is important for us (..) because the better we use them the better we will prepare our institutions, the economy and other sectors for EU membership," the state secretary said.
She expressed hope Croatia's negotiations with the Eu would start in the very near future.
Benedikt stressed that the use of pre-accession funds did not depend on the start of negotiations with the EU.
The conference, which pooled experts from Croatia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia, is aimed at initiating a debate among representatives of the state administration, local and foreign experts about the main challenges in the use of the three pre-accession funds -- Phare, Ispa and Sapard.