"We have sent today what the Commission has requested from us, certain information and explanations in connection with the fulfilment of benchmarks in the policy area No. 23," Minister Jandrokovic told reporters in Brussels where he was attending a ministerial meeting of the Adriatic-Ionian Initiative.
Croatia's EU membership bid will be on the agenda of today's working dinner of EU foreign ministers who had begun their official gathering earlier in the day in Brussels.
Croatia will be a topic of their informal discussions and the Hungarian EU presidency has stated that no decision should be expected from that working dinner.
Hungary, which is presiding over the EU until 30 June, is trying to prepare the ground for the completion of Croatia's EU entry talks by the end of its chairmanship.
European Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele is expected to brief ministers about the state of affairs in Croatia's EU accession negotiations.
We expect a positive report from the European Commission. We expect that to be an important meeting paving the way towards the accomplishment of the goal we set together, and that is the conclusion of Croatia's EU entry talks and the setting of a date for Croatia's admission to the bloc, Jandrokovic said.
Asked about the topic of monitoring Croatia's efforts to meet its obligations on its road towards the EU, the Croatian minister said that this matter should not by mystified.
All countries entering the EU were monitored and it is a duty of the EU and its member-states to follow how a candidate which has finished the negotiations is fulfilling its obligations in the period from the conclusion of the negotiations to the completion of the ratification of the treaty of accession, Jandrokovic said.
Asked about a possibility of monitoring imposed on Croatia after it joins the bloc, he said that "there are various ideas about that" and stressed that he did not think that the idea of monitoring Croatia after entering the union was real.
"As far as the monitoring after the entry into the EU, I am sure that it will not happen," he said.
According to some diplomatic sources, France has recommended the introduction of monitoring of Croatia after it enters the EU and the suspension of financial support from EU funds in the event of Zagreb's failure to meet all obligations. However, this proposal was met with resistance from some EU member-states at last week's COREPER meeting.
On the other hand, the idea of supervising Croatia's efforts to meet obligations in the period from the completion of the technical negotiations to the completion of the ratification of the treaty of accession is not disputable, as this would be a continuation of the European Commission's duty to oversee the meeting of benchmarks from the provisionally closed policy areas.