- Published: 08.07.2008.
State Secretary Kuprešak at the Meeting of the EU Committee of the Regions' Working Group on Croatia
State Secretary for European Integration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Željko Kuprešak participated on Monday, 7 July 2008, in Zagreb, in the 4th Meeting of the EU Committee of the Regions' Working Group on Croatia, where he held final presentation, together with President of the Committee of the Regions Luc Van den Brande
Subject of the discussion were expectations of Croatian local and regional authorities regarding Croatia's access to the EU and an in this regard challenges Croatia would meet in accession process as well as ways in which local and regional EU authorities could support Croatia in overcoming these challenges.
In his final presentation State Secretary Kuprešak informed participants with the course of negotiations in Croatia’s EU access processes saying that the planned goal was opening of all negotiation chapters by the end of 2008, and the expected finalization of negotiations by fall 2009.
State Secretary Kuprešak also expressed satisfaction with cooperation between local and regional representatives of Croatia and the EU in the work of the EU Committee of the Regions' Working Group on Croatia, emphasizing mutual benefits from deriving from its functioning. In the context of the improvement of the role of local and regional government bodies, State Secretary Kuprešak mentioned that in the recent years Croatia had noted certain improvements while local and regional authorities had been given bigger autonomy in their scope of work. Finally, he concluded that in the future all levels of local and regional institutions would continue with decentralization, which would greatly assist continuous and balanced development of all Croatia’s regions, respecting their individual economic and social needs.
A number of representatives of Croatian towns and counties also participated in the meeting.