POREC, April 25 (Hina) - The Minister of European Integration, Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, said on Sunday that Croatia "will most probably not join the European Union in 2007, but will try to achieve full readiness by that year to
become a member."
POREC, April 25 (Hina) - The Minister of European Integration, Kolinda
Grabar Kitarovic, said on Sunday that Croatia "will most probably not
join the European Union in 2007, but will try to achieve full
readiness by that year to become a member."#L#
"Croatia should intensify its work to win candidacy in June in order
to start negotiations on joining the European Union so that we can
have at our disposal pre-accession funds from the EU that will enable
us better adjustment," the minister said at the two-day symposium
"Croatia and European Integration: the Agricultural Policy" that ends
in the northern Adriatic resort town of Porec on Sunday.
Grabar Kitarovic said that Croatia must not allow those funds to
remain unused as had happened in the case of the ten countries due to
join the EU on May 1, which failed to use 1.27 billion euros.
The minister said she was not satisfied with the rate at which Croatia
had been using funds from European technical and financial aid
programmes, saying that only 42 million out of the 200 million euros
approved for the period between 2000 and 2006 had been used.
She underlined that Croatia would have to invest more in the
development of agriculture, the education of employees and
environmental protection.
The symposium heard that Croatia should not rush to join the European
Union, but should rather take advantage of candidate status and
European Union funds that annually invest about 300 million euros on
average in each country.
(Hina) vm