Commissioner sees talks with Croatian ministers as positive

European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici on Tuesday positively assessed his talks with Croatian ministers Branko Grcic and Boris Lalovac, adding that some more work needed to be done by next week, including additional fiscal efforts in the amount of 0.4% of GDP.

Earlier on Tuesday, the EC Commissioner met Deputy PM Grcic, who is responsible for EU funds, and Finance Minister Lalovac for talks on reforms the Croatian government is implementing or is set to carry out.

The talks were a part of consultations with the European Commission within the European Semester, an instrument for coordination of EU member-states' economic policies.

The atmosphere at the talks was positive. This is a technical level, and there is our joint will to make progress in efforts aimed at fiscal consolidation and at defining structural reforms, but the job is not over, the Commissioner told Croatian reporters in Brussels.

Moscovici underscored that the job on how to make additional savings of 0.4% of Croatia's GDP must be finalised by 21 April.

We must finalise the job as well as fiscal efforts that are necessary and we put them at some 0.4% of GDP and structural reforms so as to avoid the next state in the procedure of correcting macroeconomic imbalances. This is our common goal, he said explaining that those efforts must be defined by 21 April so that the Commission may have a correct projection and well-targeted recommendations.

Deputy Prime Minister Branko Grcic said in Brussels that there would not be any sanctions or pressure from the Commission due to the excessive budget deficit or macro-economic imbalances.

"The most important message to the Croatian public is that there won't be any sanctions against Croatia or any additional pressure," Grcic told the press after he and Minister Lalovac met with Moscovici.

Grcic and Lalovac had a technical meeting with European Commission officials on Monday, while on Tuesday they met separately with Commissioner Moscovici.

"Based on these meetings, I can say that the general assessment is that we've made significant progress in this process. We have prepared most of what is expected of us regarding the national reform programme and the convergence programme. We agreed to certain corrections that need to be made and additional fiscal effort that is necessary. Nevertheless, there is nothing in that that Croatia cannot accomplish, and I'm optimistic in that regard. In the next seven or ten days we will send these documents and I hope to our general satisfaction in Croatia but also to the satisfaction of the European Commission," Grcic said.

Croatia is currently in the last stage of the preventive segment of the procedure for macroeconomic imbalances and the next stage may be activation of the Excessive Imbalance Procedure, which is a corrective segment.

(Hina) ms

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