By Nick Mann | 1 February 2012

European Union support has helped prepare Croatia for membership next year but ‘significant challenges’ remain, the European Court of Auditors said today.

In a report on funds given for capacity building, the auditors found the €150m-a-year aid had been ‘soundly planned’ by the European Commission and the Croatian authorities.

The commission was praised for having learnt ‘important lessons’ from previous enlargements of the EU, which had made its assistance to Croatia more effective.

However, the auditors found major areas still needed to be addressed if Croatia is to successfully manage the EU funds it will receive from 2013. In particular, EC support had largely been directed to central rather than regional authorities.

‘As a result there is a risk that bodies at regional level will not have had adequate experience in implementing EU assistance by the time of the accession,’ the report said.

Attention also needed to be paid to developing the technical expertise needed to run procurements and to the fight against corruption and organised crime.

To make EU assistance more effective, the ECA recommended more on- and off-job training to build up the country’s procurement capacity. Anti-corruption measures should be strengthened, it said, with a particular focus on tacking ‘sophisticated financial crime’.

And the commission and Croatia should work together to develop a portfolio of ‘mature’ projects that would be up-and-running when Croatia joined the EU, in order to absorb the increased post-accession funding available. For major infrastructure projects, this would involve having the technical documentation necessary to receive EU funding.