The chief Croatian negotiator on this chapter, Tamara Obradovic Mazal, said that Croatia's law-making bodies will have to take into account EU standards when adopting rules on the appearance of products on the national market so as not to obstruct the access of EU member-countries' products to the Croatian market.
According to the opinion of the European Commission, with the establishment of competent state agencies and institutes Croatia has laid foundations for the administrative structure necessary for the standardisation of products and market supervision. However, a lot of work still needs to be done in this field.
The free movement of goods is incorporated in the so-called four freedoms covering free movement of goods, capital, persons and services, which is a pillar of the EU internal market.
As part of preparations for admission to the European bloc, there is a possibility that Croatia will have to jettison its campaign "Let's Buy Croatian!", Obradovic Mazal said, adding that EC officials had mentioned the example of Ireland, which was sued before the European Court of Justice 20 years ago over a similar campaign.
The first explanatory period of screening of the chapter on free movement of goods will last until the end of this week.
At this stage, EC officials are explaining to representatives of Croatia and Turkey, the other acceding country, the EU acquis communautaire in this field.