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COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION EN C/07/303 Brussels, 19 December 2007 16735/07 (Presse 303) Fourth meeting of the Accession Conference at deputy level with Croatia Brussels, 19 December 2007 The fourth meeting of the Intergovernmental Accession Conference with Croatia at deputy level was held today in Brussels, following the start of accession negotiations on 3 October 2005. The aim of the Conference was to open negotiations on two further new chapters (all with closing benchmarks), namely: Chapter 21 - Trans-European Networks and Chapter 33 - Financial and Budgetary Provisions.
For the two chapters, and on the basis of negotiating positions, the Union has closely examined Croatia's general state of preparedness in the two areas. Taking into account Croatia's present state of preparations - and on the understanding that Croatia will continue to make progress in the alignment with and implementation of the acquis - the EU underlined main issues regarding the closing benchmarks to be met by Croatia, namely:
Chapter 21 - Trans-European Networks
Croatia and the European Commission have agreed on the future TEN-T network according to the Decision No 1692/96/EC as amended and on a priority project of European Interest in the framework of this TEN-T network.
In more general terms, the EU underlined that it would devote particular attention to monitoring all specific issues mentioned in its common position with a view to ensuring Croatia's administrative capacity, its capacity to complete legal alignment in all the areas under this chapter as well as to ensure the appropriate level of safety required for all modes of transport.
Chapter 33 - Financial and Budgetary Provisions
Croatia increases its administrative capacity and prepares procedural rules to ensure it will be able, from accession, to correctly calculate, forecast, account for, collect, pay, control and report to the EU on own resources in line with the acquis.
In addition, this chapter may only be provisionally closed once agreement has been reached with regard to Croatia's request for transitional arrangements concerning payments to the EU Budget. The EU also underlined that it will devote particular attention to monitoring all specific issues mentioned in its common position with a view to ensuring Croatia's administrative capacity to ensure the correct calculation, collection, payment and control of own resources and reporting to the EU for implementation of the own resources rules.
The Union will closely monitor Croatia's progress in these two chapters throughout the negotiations.
Since the start of the negotiations, sixteen chapters have been opened, of which two have been provisionally closed.
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16735/07 (Presse 303)
