EU "TASK FORCE" ON CROATIA TO MEET WITH ICTY AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRUSSELS 001606

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/22/2015
TAGS: PREL HR ICTY EUN USEU BRUSSELS
SUBJECT: EU "TASK FORCE" ON CROATIA TO MEET WITH ICTY AND
CROATIANS ON APRIL 25

REF: USEU TODAY 3/24/2005

Classified By: Rick Holtzapple, PolOff, Reasons 1.4 (B/D)

SUMMARY
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1. (C) Commission, UK and Luxembourg Presidency officials in
Brussels expect, and hope, that "nothing new" will come out
of the first meeting of the EU "task force" on Croatia on
April 26 in Luxembourg. The UK has dropped the idea of
presenting the Croats with a written to-do list, but will
still endeavor to be very specific during the task force
meetings about steps the GoC has failed to take, and that it
must take. Our UK contact said this was intended as much "to
educate Luxembourg and Austria" as it was to inform the
Croatians. But UK PolDir Sawers plans to reinforce the
message with the GoC during a visit to Zagreb the first week
of May. END SUMMARY.


2. (SBU) EU leaders at their Summit on March 23, 2005, agreed
to create a task force composed of the Luxembourg Presidency,
the incoming British and Austrian Presidencies, the
Commission and Javier Solana to report on Croatia's progress
in meeting the conditions for opening accession negotiations
with the EU. This task force was proposed by Austria
(Croatia's biggest booster within the EU) just days after the
EU had postponed opening negotiations on March 17 due to
failure by Croatia to satisfy the EU that it was "fully
cooperating" with the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY). But no written or formal mandate
was given to the group other than to consult with both ICTY
and the GoC and then report to the General Affairs Council
composed of EU FMs. The decision to create a task force was
announced by Luxembourg PM Juncker and in a subsequent press
release, nothing more.


3. (C) The Presidency has announced the task force will have
its first meeting April 26, on the margins of an
already-planned EU-Croatia Association Council. The task
force will meet separately, first with ICTY prosecutor Carla
Del Ponte, and then with Croatian PM Ivo Sanader. But
participants in the task force say they know little more than
that. A Commission official involved told us, "The entire
set-up is a bit awkward. We don't expect, or want, much of
anything to come out of this." Both the Commission and the
UK will be lobbying to keep any results from this session as
low-key as possible, pushing for a report by cable (COREU) to
member states afterward, rather than including it on the
agenda of the May 23 or June 13 GAERCs. They expect the
Austrians will push for a GAERC discussion in May. Political
Directors of the five EU participants will meet on April 25
to try and agree on the task force's procedures and
objectives.


4. (C) Commission, UK and Luxembourg Presidency contacts have
all stressed with us that this task force has no mandate from
the broader EU to negotiate with Croatia or even to deliver
any message beyond the one previously issued by the European
Council -- accession negotiations can only begin when Croatia
is fully cooperating with the ICTY. Commission and UK
contacts report that back channel contacts with the ICTY
prosecutor's office indicate she will have no progress to
report by the Croatians since her last presentation to the EU
in March.


5. (C) The UK, while no fan of the whole task force idea,
has been examining ways it might be able to use it to prod
Zagreb in to doing the necessary and finding Gotovina. The
UK floated with other task force members the idea of giving
the Croatians an illustrative, but not necessarily
comprehensive, list of additional steps Zagreb should take to
cooperate with the ICTY. The Luxembourg Presidency and
Enlargement Commissioner Rehn both rejected this, saying the
task force had no EU approval for such a list, and fearing it
would encourage the Croats to focus on just those tasks
rather than on delivering Gotovina. Our UK contact said,
Austria and Solana's staff did support the idea, "but for the
wrong reasons."


6. (C) The UK nonetheless plans to be quite specific in its
oral presentation at the task force session with Sanader.
The purpose, our contact said, was as much "to educate
Luxembourg and Austria" on the many ways in which Croatia
could be doing more, as it was to convince the GoC to step up
its efforts. UK PolDir John Sawers would then be traveling
to Zagreb the following week to go over these issues in
greater detail with the GoC. Our Brussels contact did not
have specific details about what would be on the UK list.

MCKINLEY
.