"The National Committee has established that the negotiating team has been working really good and we have been given good information," Committee chairman Ivica Racan said after the meeting, which lasted more than three hours.
Racan said the meeting focused on the chapter on freedom of movement of capital, including the issue of real estate.
Committee members' views differed on whether the negotiating team should try to win permanent exemptions for some real estate or accept transitional periods, Racan said.
The Committee is not done debating the matter nor did it harmonise opposed views today, he added.
Asked who had proposed permanent exemptions and what they referred to, Racan would not give a direct answer, stating only that some positions stated at today's meeting already existed in the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), and that they referred to farmland and protected nature areas.
"Some of us believe there is no reason not to introduce a protective clause," Racan said.
Chief negotiator Vladimir Drobnjak said the meeting was useful because different views and useful proposals were presented regarding the negotiating position on the chapter referring to the free movement of capital, including real estate.
"We still have not come to the point where we have to start defining our negotiating positions," Drobnjak said, adding that bilateral screening for freedom of movement of capital would be held in Brussels next week.
In about two months after bilateral screening, the European Commission will draw up a report on screening, and then it will be known when the chapter will be opened, Drobnjak said.
He stressed that the chapter on real estate was very sensitive and difficult. "That problem can be dealt with in different ways, not only through transitional periods, but also through amendments to the national legislation... in order to additionally protect our real estate in the long run, without discriminating against EU nationals."
Racan added that the SAA contained clearly defined exemptions referring to farmland and protected nature areas. "Farmland and protected nature areas are exempt from the right of foreign nationals to buy that kind of real estate." He added that there was another general exemption, the possibility of restricting the right of foreign nationals to acquire real estate in Croatia if it was judged to be in the public interest.