The bilateral stage of screening for the last policy chapter to be reviewed, on judiciary and fundamental rights, was completed in Brussels this afternoon. The acquis communautaire is divided in 35 chapters, but the policy chapters Institutions and Other Issues are not negotiated.
The screening procedure precedes concrete talks on individual chapters and enables both negotiating sides to define their negotiating positions. This procedure makes it possible to define the differences, which enables both sides to define their negotiating positions based on which concrete negotiations are conducted on each policy chapter. The negotiations themselves are mostly about reaching agreement on deadlines within which the negotiating country is to adapt to European standards.
The process of screening in Croatia's case started on October 20 last year and was completed as planned. Over the last year, members of the Croatian negotiating team held 66 meetings in the process of screening, of which 33 were explanatory and 33 were bilateral screenings. Croatia wrote more than 15,000 pages of documents in the process, and the entire project involved around 2,000 people.
Several steps remain to be made between the screening procedure and the start of concrete negotiations. The European Commission draws up for each policy chapter a report with the recommendation that negotiations be opened with or without additional criteria (so-called benchmarks). The report is then sent to the Council of the European Union and is first discussed by the task force for enlargement, which consists of representatives of all member-countries.
After the task force considers the report, it sends it to the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER), which is made up of ambassadors from the member-countries. Only after the COREPER reaches agreement on the report can the EU send the candidate-country a letter requesting it to either submit its negotiating positions, if it was not given any benchmarks, or that it has to meet additional criteria to open negotiations.
In case when there are no benchmarks, after it receives the candidate-country's negotiating position, the Council of the EU instructs the European Commission to draw up a joint negotiating position of the EU. The draft is then sent again to the task force for enlargement and the COREPER, and only after the EU harmonises its negotiating position can negotiations on individual chapters begin.
The procedure is even longer for chapters where additional criteria are introduced, because they must be met first. After the EU establishes compliance with the benchmarks, the same procedure as in the first case follows.
To date the EC has completed reports on the screening for 16 policy chapters, and the Council of the EU has processed 13 so far. Croatia was given benchmarks for six chapters. Additional criteria are to be met in the chapters on public procurement, market competition, social policy and employment, justice, freedom and security, free movement of capital and free movement of goods.
There are no benchmarks for the remaining seven chapters - science and research - on which talks were provisionally closed in the meantime, education and culture, the customs union, the right to establishment and freedom to provide services, economic and monetary policy, enterprise and industrial policy, and intellectual property law.
Croatia has so far delivered its negotiation positions for education and culture and the customs union. In a few days it will send Brussels its negotiating positions on four more chapters for which it was not given any benchmarks - the right to establishment and freedom to provide services, intellectual property law, the economic and monetary union, and enterprise and industrial policy - adopted by the government at a session today.
It is estimated that Croatia will be given additional benchmarks for two-thirds of policy chapters.