the chief of the European Commission (EC) delegation to Croatia, Vincent Degert, said on Tuesday.
"This is not a postponement but a rescheduling of the agreed framework for the screening given that this will not affect the overall dynamics of the process or plans to complete the first multilateral stage by early October this year," Grabar-Kitarovic told the press. The screening is an analysis of the adjustment of Croatian legislation to European Union standards.
She underlined that this was not a political decision but one "reached after consultations (with the EC) for operative and technical reasons".
Degert said the rescheduling was part of the EC's agreement with Croatia but also with Turkey.
Both officials said that previous negotiations on accession to the European Union included a chapter covering only the judiciary, which was very complex and very difficult to negotiate for every candidate country.
They added that previous experience in the enlargement process led to the chapter being divided in two, chapters 23 and 24, the former covering the judiciary and human rights, and the latter justice, freedom and security, in view of facilitating negotiations and reforms in all transition countries.
Degert and Grabar-Kitarovic said that both the explanatory and the bilateral stage of the screening for chapter 24 were completed last week.
Instead of working in parallel on two important chapters, this enables consecutive work, said Degert, adding that the EC needed time to draw a report on chapter 24 because the same people would work on chapter 23.
Grabar-Kitarovic said the rescheduling would enable more work on and implementation of judicial reforms.
Degert said the rescheduling would make both sides more effective and better prepared, and underlined that both Croatia and Turkey would not only assume commitments and strategies, but also be able to show evidence of implementing them.
He recalled that Croatia adopted a judicial reform last November and voiced hope it would have more time to implement it and have evidence of this in September.
Grabar-Kitarovic said additional time and additional work would result in a better report on the screening of the chapter in question, which in turn would improve the negotiating positions and step up the negotiations.