Market competition policy is the fourth of the 35 chapters of the acquis communautaire to undergo the EU's screening process.
This area includes government subsidies and market competition (antitrust). The talks on Monday focused on state subsidies, the area for which Croatia has recently adopted a new law which the Commission hailed.
Under the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, Croatia should have adopted a national plan for the reconstruction of state subsidies for which the deadline expired last spring, Spevec said and added the government had been working on it but the document had not yet been adopted,
On Tuesday, the Croatian delegation assessed that "Croatia's legislation was mostly adjusted to that of the EU in the area of market competition (antitrust," saud the head of the task force for market competition, Marijana Liszt.
EC officials told Croatia it needed to advance the Agency for the Protection of Market Competition by hiring experts. The agency needs to be more involved in the adoption of regulations about state subsidies, the EC recommended adding that the agency should be able to give fines and thus fight cartels.