EU COUNCIL OF MINISTERS DECIDES TO LAUNCH MEMBERSHIP TALKS WITH CROATIA
The European Union Council of Ministers decided that accession negotiations with Croatia would be open in the early hours of Tuesday, October 4. (Hina)
EU COUNCIL OF MINISTERS DECIDES TO LAUNCH MEMBERSHIP TALKS WITH CROATIA
LUXEMBOURG, Oct 4 (Hina) - The European Union Council of Ministers decided that accession negotiations with Croatia would be open in the early hours of Tuesday, October 4. The text of conclusions which the EU ministerial council adopted at their session in Luxembourg in the night between Monday and Tuesday, warmly welcomes "the report to the Croatia Task Force by the ICTY Chief Prosecutor that Croatia was now co-operating fully with the ICTY, as well as the clear commitment by the Croatian Prime Minister that full cooperation would be maintained until the last remaining indictee was in The Hague, and as long as required by the ICTY." The text carries an assessment of the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) that "if Croatia continued to work with the same resolve and intensity, she was confident that Ante Gotovina would be transferred to The Hague soon." "The Council confirmed that sustaining full co-operation with the ICTY would remain a requirement for progress throughout the accession process." "The Council invited the (European) Commission to continue to monitor this closely, on the basis of regular reports from the ICTY, and report to the Council if full co-operation is not maintained," the document reads. "The Council noted that an assessment of co-operation with the ICTY would form part of the Commission´s reports to the Council on Croatia´s fulfilment of the political criteria," it reads. "The Council agreed that less than full co-operation with the ICTY at any stage would affect the overall progress of the negotiations and could be grounds for triggering the mechanism in paragraph 12 of the negotiating framework," it concludes. Paragraph 12 contains a suspension clause regulating the suspension of the entry talks in certain cases.
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