Racan told reporters after a meeting of the committee that the screening, which was to start in March, was postponed in order to give the Croatian judiciary time to deal with a heavy backlog of cases and crack down on corruption.
"That is the position of the European Commission, which follows the situation here. It probably also follows corruption in the sphere of politics and there has been a lot of it lately," Racan said, citing cases of trade in deputies' posts and corruption in the state administration and judiciary.
He said that Croatia should draw up and implement action plans to sort out the situation in the judiciary by September and receive from the European Commission as favourable a report as possible.
Drobnjak said that the European Commission, by recommending the postponement, acted as Croatia's ally because it was also in its interest that the screening process should be completed in the best possible way.
"There are no formal reasons for the screening not starting in March, but the Commission's estimate is that Croatia can improve the situation by September by launching an additional action plan and get a more favourable rating than it would have now," Drobnjak said.
Racan said that the overall screening process was going well. He noted that some of the committee members took a position that in parallel with the screening it was necessary to carry out action plans in different areas in order to improve the situation before the completion of the accession talks. In this context he cited the need to raise the level of competitiveness of the national economy.