Agriculture is one of the largest and most difficult negotiating chapters which Croatian experts and their colleagues from the European Commission should analyse in order to determine differences between Croatian and EU laws in the area.
Croatia has to fully adjust its legislation in order to meet the EU membership criteria.
It is of vital importance for Croatia to step up economic reform in order to become more competitive and to qualify for greater production quotas and subsidies. It should try to win the highest possible quotas for sugar, vineyards, olive groves and milk, while other products can be produced in unlimited quantities, Croatian experts said.
The sale of agricultural land will be a particularly burning issue, because farmland in Croatia is much cheaper than it is in the EU, so the Croatian negotiators will try to delay it as much as possible.
Agriculture is solely within the authority of the European Union. The European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is regulated by numerous binding rules which Croatia will have to adopt and ensure their enforcement in order to be able to cope with competition pressure within the bloc.