Brussels, 09/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday ambassadors from EU Member States (Coreper) will be discussing the consequences for the Council due to Croatia still not appearing to be cooperating entirely with the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ITFY). On 16 May the General Affairs Council is expected to decide whether accession negotiations with Zagreb can be launched on 17 March as planned. On several occasions the Commission and Luxembourg presidency have underlined that it will be very difficult, indeed, impossible to give the green light to negotiations if the fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, accused of war crimes, is not transferred to the ITFY in The Hague by 16 March. Last Friday another letter from Carla del Ponte to the President of the Council, Jean Asselborn, confirms and even strengthens accusations against the Croatian government. Del Ponte affirms that Croatian secret services have done everything to prevent (ITFY) investigators from finding Gotovina and that the Croatian government has been informed about this action but has done nothing in response. Ms del Ponte also reiterated her conviction that the Croatian authorities were willingly protecting the fugitive General.
In an interview to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Wednesday, the Croatian prime minister Ivo Sanader said, however, that he was confident that accession negotiations could begin on 17 March, “postponing negotiations would strengthen anti-European and anti-reform forces in the whole western Balkans region”. Sanader appealed for negotiations to be launched on 17 March and suggested that Croatia and the EU then tried to find Gotovina together. Mr Sanader stated that he was launching, “an appeal to EU Member States to create together with Croatia a task force to resolve the Gotovina case”.