Suker says government economic recovery programme assessed positively by EU

The European Union has positively assessed Croatia's Pre-accession Economic Programme (PEP) and the government's economic recovery programme, and the current situation in Croatia is much better than in many EU member countries, Finance Minister Ivan Suker said in Brussels on Tuesday.

"Today we discussed the pre-accession programmes of the candidate countries Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey. Croatia's PEP received a good assessment as did its economic recovery programme," said Suker, who attended in Brussels a regular annual meeting of economy and finance ministers from EU countries and candidate countries, focusing on fiscal and economic policies.

Suker added that the current situation in Croatia was much better than in many EU member countries, which he said was partly owing to the fact that Croatia had to adjust its legislation to the EU's and therefore to pursue strict fiscal policies.

When one analyses the budget deficit and the share of the public debt in GDP, one can see that the situation in Croatia is much better than in most EU countries, said Suker, adding that the most sensitive issue for Croatia was its foreign debt.

"As regards the competitiveness of the Croatian economy, it will depend on our willingness to carry out structural reforms. The government, among other things, has put forward an economic recovery programme which is designed to improve economic competitiveness," he said.

The minister dismissed as "disaster-predicting" forecasts that Croatia would not be able to utilise money set aside for it in EU funds.

"I think that there is enough time for all to prepare projects and for Croatia to make use of a large portion of EU funding. I am confident that the absorption rate will be far above the predictions of some doom-sayers," Suker said, adding that a similar situation occurred in October 2008 when there was talk that Croatia would use only 10 percent of funding under the PHARE programme, but that eventually the absorption rate was almost 95 percent.

He dismissed claims that the ability of local authorities to co-finance projects funded to a large extent from EU funds could be compromised by the tax reform that would cause local self-government units to lose a part of their revenues.

"We must not be negative and assume that Croatia will not use those funds. One should not complain, but start working and be aware that the amount of funds that will be utilised depends on the number of good projects," Suker said.