Commissioner Rehn says Croatia's EU membership could be delayed

Enlargement Commissioner wants more cooperation on war crimes issue

Olli Rehn

Ivo Sanader

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The European Commissioner for Enlargement, Olli Rehn, says that Croatia's negotiations for membership in the European Union could be jeopardised by the country's lack of cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
      The EU has agreed to begin talks with Croatia on March 17th if Croatia's government agrees to cooperate sufficiently with the tribunal in its investigations on war crimes.
      Rehn was speaking on Monday at a meeting of foreign ministers of the EU countries.
      At the same meeting, the foreign ministers offered closer cooperation with Ukraine, but questioned the country's prospects of starting EU membership talks by 2007.
      The foreign ministers also agreed on a normalisation of diplomatic relations with the government of Cuba.
     
"If the Commission were supposed to give a recommendation on the basis of present information, I could not recommend starting negotiations with Croatia", Rehn said in his statement.
      He clarified his statement later at a press conference, saying that "if there is no progress from Croatia's side, we are willing to postpone the membership talks."
      Rehn said that the tribunal has information that Croatia would be able to hand over a suspected war criminal, former general Ante Gotovina, if the government had sufficient political will. He also said that the Croatian government has been in contact with him indirectly. The general is believed to be either in Croatia, or in the Croatian part of Bosnia.
      Gotovina led Croatia's last attack against the Serbs in August 1995. He was indicted for war crimes in 2001.
     
On Monday Croatia hurried to announce that it was "doing everything possible" to bring Gotovina to justice. Croatia's Prime Minister Ivo Sanader insisted that Croatia is "fully cooperating" with the court in The Hague.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Commissioner Rehn in Serbia: Protecting war criminals endangers ties with EU (26.1.2005)
  Commissioner Rehn: US not a party to discussions with Turkey on EU membership (18.1.2005)

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