The meeting drew Foreign Minister Gordan Jandrokovic, Sea and Transport Minister Bozidar Kalmeta, Croatia's chief negotiator with the EU, Vladimir Drobnjak, the head of the national Competition Agency (AZTN), Olgica Spevec, as well as executives of state-run shipyards and trade unionists.

The European Commission expects the continuation of shipyard restructuring. The negotiating chapter has been opened, but Croatia has not met the benchmark for the shipbuilding sector, that is, it has no restructuring plans which have already been approved and those plans will be the main condition for closing (the Competition Policy chapter), Popijac said.

In the case of shipyards for whose privatisation bids have been received, bidders should make plans for their restructuring, and managing boards should do it for shipyards with no bids for privatisation, the minister said.

Programmes are to be forwarded to commissions in charge, to the AZTN agency and to the European Commission.

Strict deadlines for this have not been set, namely the plans should be made before the completion of Croatia's EU membership talks, according to Popijac.

Union leader Ozren Matijasevic said trade union representatives were engaged in the process of privatisation and overhauling of shipyards.

This is the last chance for shipyards to produce sustainable business plans, Matijasevic said.

Another union leader, Vedran Dragicevic, said there were chances but it depended on Croatia and negotiators in the European Commission whether those chances would be used.

AZTN chief Olgica Spevec said it would be difficult to draw up plans for shipyards which did not envisage the current model of financing from the state budget.

Spevec said that the agency had not yet received any plan to this effect.