Most of them were not inclined to interpret the postponement of the membership talks as a failure of the government of Prime Minister Ivo Sanader.
"If Brussels is mistaken about Croatia, Croatia has no reason to be mistaken about itself," the president of the strongest opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP), Ivica Racan, said adding that the country should continue preparations so that the talks, once they started, could be quick and efficient.
"The date of the start of the negotiations has been overly dramatised, to some extent even by senior government officials," Racan said.
The head of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), Zlatko Tomcic, also believes that Croatia should carry on as if nothing had happened and try to get another chance.
"We should roll up our sleeves and carry on with the work and get a new chance for the start of the talks as soon as possible," Tomcic said, saying that the fact that no new date had been set was favourable for Croatia as this might mean that the talks would start as soon as the necessary conditions were met.
The leader of the Croatian Party of Rights, Anto Djapic, completely disagreed.
"The fact that no new date has been set means that talks may start tomorrow or 20 years from now," Djapic said, adding that the EU decision was the worst possible scenario and that the government was to blame.
Zlatko Kramaric of the Liberal Party (LS) said that the postponement of the talks was "the least evil", because there was no longer the pressure of the date for the start of the talks which he said had misled some members of the public and the ruling party.
"I visited Brussels recently and saw it for myself that things were not so bad for Croatia," the LS leader said, adding that the postponement was a good lesson to Sanader that he should not concentrate on dates in the future, but on preparations.
Croatian People's Party (HNS) president Vesna Pusic said that one of the causes of the postponement was the belated realisation that full cooperation with the Hague tribunal was an important condition. She noted that this showed how much had been done in ensuring the functioning of the rule of law.
Pusic described the adoption of a negotiating framework as a positive fact, and said she expected that Croatia would meet the remaining condition for the start of the talks in June.
"If that does not happen, Croatia might find itself in a much worse situation in October," Pusic said, adding that Croatia should now step up its efforts to adjust its legislation to that of the European Union and to apply EU standards.