The European Union member-states assess that Croatia is on the right track in its preparations for membership of the bloc and the country has achieved a considerable level of adjustment to the European acquis communautaire. They also call on Croatia to use the remaining time in the run-up to its accession in order to be fully prepared for membership, read a draft conclusion which the EU General Affairs Council is expected to adopt later on Tuesday.
The Council has thoroughly analysed the monitoring report and monitoring tables and is glad to notice that Croatia's preparations for EU membership are generally on the right track and that Croatia has reached a considerable degree of alignment with the acquis communautaire. In the same vein, the Council calls on Croatia to use the remaining time in the run-up to to its accession to accelerate efforts aimed at continuing the reforms and on giving evidence of the results which it realised and achieved in the accession negotiations, notably in judiciary, fundamental rights, freedom and security, market competition and in other areas in which the European Commission established that further efforts were needed, reads the draft prepared by the COREPER (the Committee of Permanent Representatives in the European Union, made up of the head or deputy head of mission from the EU member states in Brussels)
The General Affairs Council consists of foreign and European affairs ministers from EU members and Croatia's Deputy Prime Minister Neven Mimica is attending the council's meeting in Brussels as an observer.
The Council also takes note of the state in the process of the ratification of the Croatia-EU accession treaty and expects to welcome Croatia as its full member on 1 July 2013 provided that the process of the ratification of the treaty is completed in the EU member-states.
In this context the Council calls on the European Commission to continue monitoring Croatia's preparations for its accession and expects a comprehensive report and supplemented monitoring tables which the Commission is due to make this autumn.
The Commission issued the first pre-accession monitoring report on Croatia on 24 April for the three most demanding negotiating areas from the EU acquis: the Judiciary and Fundamental Rights, Justice, Freedom and Security and Competition Policy.
The Commission expressed then objections to the changes to the Croatian conflict of interest legislation regarding the appointment of senior politicians to the state companies' supervisory boards and changes to the police legislation which Croatia gave up in the meantime, and to the introduction of additional fees to providers of mobile telephony services and to the postponement of the enforcement of the law on public distrainers.
