Speaking to reporters before the start of an EU-Croatia intergovernmental conference at which talks on the chapter on education and culture will be opened and provisionally closed, Grabar Kitarovic said that she expected yet another intergovernmental conference at the level of chief negotiators.
If new chapters are opened, it could happen only next week, which is the last working week this year.
Grabar Kitarovic heads Croatia's delegation at the intergovernmental conference in Brussels. The chapter on education and culture is the second chapter Croatia has opened since the start of its EU entry talks, after the chapter on science and research, which was opened and provisionally closed on June 12. Both chapters are among the easiest ones because they do not contain much EU legislation that needs to be adopted by Croatia, which is why talks on the two chapters during previous enlargement rounds were usually opened and closed at a single meeting.
What is more important for Croatia is the fact that its accession talks were finally separated from Turkey's with the chapter on education and culture.
Grabar Kitarovic said she expected Croatia's accession talks to be accelerated and the European Commission to complete reports on screening for all chapters during the first three or four months next year.
Asked how important it was for Croatia to conduct accession talks separately from Turkey, the minister said that the accession process was individual and that it was best for each country to be responsible for its own pace of negotiations.