by Michael Thurston
BRUSSELS - The European Union delayed Wednesday the start of entry talks with Croatia due to its failure to find a key war crimes suspect, ignoring Zagreb's insistent protests that it is already doing all it can.
But while refusing to start talks as planned this week, the EU underlined said that its door will be open to the former Yugoslav country as soon as it provides "full cooperation" with UN prosecutors in the Hague.
Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader immediately voiced disappointment at the move -- the first time an EU candidate state's hopes have been put on hold -- triggered by lack of progress in the hunt for fugitive general Ante Gotovina.
"I cannot but express my dissatisfaction with this conclusion," Sanader told the European Parliament minutes after EU foreign ministers agreed the widely-anticipated delay. "We are fully cooperating with The Hague," he added.
Gotovina, a 49-year-old retired general, is considered a war hero by many Croatians but is wanted by the UN war crimes court for the alleged murder of at least 150 ethnic Serbs during the final stages of Croatia's 1991-95 war.
He is also accused of plundering Serbs' property during the war, when Serb rebels opposed Croatia's breakaway from the former Yugoslavia.
Croatia, hoping to be the second former Yugoslav republic to join the EU as early as 2007 -- Slovenia became the first last May -- was told in December that it could in theory start talks with Brussels on March 17.
But an EU green light was conditional on providing "full cooperation" with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
The court's chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte reiterated this week that Croatia is still not providing full cooperation, despite a last-minute announcement from Zagreb that it had frozen Gotovina's assets.
That assessment left the vast majority of EU states -- 21 out of 25 -- opposed to starting talks with Zagreb. Only Croatia's near neighbours Austria, Hungary, Slovania and Slovenia backed launching talks.
"I regret that the evidence is that Croatia has not cooperated as fully as we believe it should," said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, whose country was one of the most firmly opposed to starting talks this week.
But despite the impasse Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, said he still hopes that EU entry talks with Croatia could begin "in the course of the next weeks."
He noted that the EU ministers Wednesday did agree a "framework for negotiations," for the Croatia talks, to be used once a green light is given.
"I'm fully convinced that in the course of the next weeks, Croatia will be able to prove that she is cooperating closely and entirely with the international tribunal (UN war crimes court) and that then immediately the decision for the starting of negotiations can be taken," he told AFP.
Politically the EU is treading a fine line over Croatia.
On the one hand it is aware that a green light for Croatia would send a bad signal to Serbia over the need to capture the two biggest fish in the warcrimes manhunt: Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his army leader Ratko Mladic.
But at the same time it is aware of polls showing anti-EU feeling stoked up in Croatia by the Gotovina affair, raising questions about its whole strategy of offering EU ties to the still fragile-Balkan region.
The Croatian prime minister is clearly aware of this, but affirms he will not use it for political purposes. "Croatia is and will be the anchor of stability in this part of Europe," he said.
Sanader added that he hopes an EU summit in Brussels next week could reassess the foreign ministers' decision. "I would evaluate this as very very positive if the summit ... reopens the issue," he said.

03/16/2005 17:28 GMT