The first stage of screening means that European Commission officials will brief representatives of Croatia and Turkey, the two countries which started their accession negotiations with the EU on 3 October, about the EU acquis communautaire and set out European legislative requirements in that field.
Both Croatia and Turkey will hold together the first round of the talks with the EU representatives on Monday. Later the processes will be separated, and the bilateral EU-Croatian meeting for further screening of the public procurement chapter is scheduled for 29 November when Croatian officials will speak about differences between the Croatian legislation and the EU standards regarding public procurement.
The European bloc has detailed rules in this area which Croatia is expected to adopt and set up task forces to implement those rules.
Public procurement is a part of the chapter referring to the free movement of goods, but the EU has divided some more complex chapters into several sections so as to make the negotiations easier.
That is why, Croatia and Turkey will hold negotiations with the EU on 35 chapters while the ten new countries of the bloc, which entered the EU in 2004, negotiated 31 chapters.
This year, Zagreb and Ankara start screening processes on seven chapters, and the entire process should wrap up until September next year.
Screening has already started for chapters referring to science and research and education and culture, while on Tuesday the candidate countries and the EU are to launch the screening process for the market competition chapter.
The negotiations on each chapter start when the screening process is completed and when a country-candidate and the EU define their negotiating positions regarding the chapter in question.