We are willing and ready to help Croatia with our experience in all areas of life, Pal Schmitt, a Hungarian member of the European Parliament from the European People's Party, said in Brussels on Wednesday following a second meeting of the joint EU-Croatia parliamentary committee.
Schmitt co-chairs the joint committee with Gordan Jandrokovic, the chairman of the Croatian Parliament's Foreign Policy Committee and a member of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party.
"The joint committee has become a body through which we are advancing relations between Croatia and the European Union and their parliaments," Jandrokovic said, adding that at two working meetings held on Tuesday and Wednesday views were exchanged on nearly all topics, including political and economic cooperation, ongoing reforms in Croatia and the political criteria Croatia has to meet in order to qualify for full membership.
"Advice from our colleagues in the European Parliament is welcome," Jandrokovic said.
The European Commission Director-General for Enlargement, Fabrizio Barbaso, who participated in the first meeting on Tuesday, told reporters that now that membership talks with Croatia had been opened Croatia had two advantages -- experience, because it recently negotiated the stabilisation and association agreement, and an effectively organised negotiating team.
Before talks on individual chapters of the EU acquis communautaire actually start, it is necessary to perform screening, an in-depth analysis of the adjustment of Croatian legislation to that of the EU.
We will start with a combination of easier and more difficult chapters, Barbaso said.
The screening process is due to start on 20 October and is expected to take about a year. There are 35 negotiating chapters. The first chapter to be opened will be one on science and research, while the agriculture chapter, which is viewed as one of the most difficult, will be opened in December. The screening of seven chapters is expected to be completed this year.