State Secretary Maja Vrtarić met with representatives of Baden-Württemberg’s European Relations Parliamentary Committee

State Secretary Vrtarić expressed her satisfaction over the fact that her first meeting as the Commission’s co-chair is precisely with the representatives of Baden-Württemberg’s European Relations Parliamentary Committee, since full-fledged EU membership is one of Croatia’s basic foreign-policy goals and one of the permanent topics of the Commission’s sessions. She thanked for the support Germany and Baden-Württemberg are extending Croatia along its path to the EU.

Focusing on the evaluation of the Commission’s past activities, the participants reviewed the realisation of the projects on economy, culture, science, education, and internal affairs. There is room for deepening the cooperation in European integration, so the participants discussed the possible ways of further educating the employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration in activities following Croatia’s EU accession. Both sides expressed a wish for the continuation of the cooperation started in said area by the former co-chairs. The next Commission’s session was announced for start-2009 in Zagreb, with the topics from economy, tourism, culture, science, education, foreign affairs, and European integration.

The Committee representatives showed interest in the possibilities of investing in Croatia, as well as in Croatia’s One Stop Shop program, aimed at raising the level of services by the state authority bodies to business subjects and citizens in realising their needs and rights.

Director for Coordinating the Adaptation to EU System and Monitoring the SAA implementation Dubravka Vlašić Pleše received the Committee representatives in a separate meeting, informing them in detail about the present course of Croatia’s EU accession process.