(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission has decided to release 66 million euros (100 million dollars) in so-called pre-accession aid to Croatia, which had been frozen over concerns about the EU candidate's handling of funds.

"Croatia has made substantial progress in reinforcing its administrative capacity in order to better manage EU pre-accession financial assistance," a commission spokesman said Friday.

On account of those improvements, the commission said it "has lifted" the suspension put in place in December.

However, the spokesman said that "Croatia acknowledged that work still needs to be done in order to address remaining weaknesses in its system of decentralised implementation of EU financial assistance."

The release of the funds comes just days after the commission announced that it had frozen hundreds of millions of euros in aid to Bulgaria over concerns about corruption and the mishandling of EU money.

Croatia began EU membership negotiations in 2005 and aspires to join the club in the second half of 2009 or 2010.

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