Brussels, 17/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - On 2 February 2005, the European Commission will unveil a Communication setting out the framework for the upcoming accession negotiations with Croatia (due to start on 17 March 2005), depending on how the Croatian government cooperates with the ICTY in The Hague (see other article, p.5). The negotiating framework mostly follow experience the strategy adopted during the accession negotiations with the ten new Member States, Bulgaria and Romania, but the Commission is planning to make at least three changes in the way the negotiations with Croatia are being organised, explained European Commissioner for Enlargement, Olli Rehn, on Monday, at a joint press conference with the prime minister of Croatia, Ivo Sanader.
The European Commission will spell out the 'Copenhagen' political criteria in more detail that Croatia will have to meet at all times, namely the Community acquis for democracy and fundamental values. Secondly, the negotiation framework will set more detailed basic criteria for deciding when negotiating chapters can be launched and, more importantly, when the negotiations over a particular chapter can be considered to have been concluded. Thirdly, the number of chapters to be negotiated will be increased from 31 (as applied to the EU's ten new Member States and will also apply to Bulgaria and Romania) to 36 by dividing up various mega-chapters into smaller individual chapters. For example, the farming chapter will be split in two - one covering the organising of agricultural markets and the other dealing with veterinary issues, public health and food safety. This will facilitate the negotiating process and help speed it up and make it more efficient, explained Rehn. The Croatian prime minister, Ivo Sanader, also welcomed the increased number of chapters, stressing the time that would be won by Croatia being able to negotiate issues in parallel that once had to be considered under the same negotiating chapter. Screening of Croatian legislation (basically to iden6ify where it is incompatible with EU legislation) will begin as soon as the accession negotiations begin on 17 March, firstly with an explanatory stage, rapidly moving on to more technical assessments.