Minister Orsat Miljenic on Tuesday replied to Reding's letter of late July in which she asked when Croatia planned to align its law on the EAW with European legislation.
The deadline which the European Commission set for the reply expired last Friday. In the reply, Croatia states the European Union countries' demands it has met since the EAW went into force.
Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said on Monday, when there was still no reply, that the Commission deeply regretted this and announced sanctions against Croatia. Tensions between Zagreb and the Commission heightened after she said Croatia was hiding the killers of Croatian dissidents.
In late June, Croatia passed a law limiting the application of the EAW to crimes committed after August 2002. In her letter to Miljenic, Reding said that what Croatia did on June 28, by amending the EAW law, was not in accordance with European legislation and that it should be changed.