In 2004 Croatia was more prepared for European Union membership than Romania and Bulgaria, former European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten said according to one of the confidential documents released by the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks.
"Croatia, Patten said, is probably far more prepared for EU membership than either Bulgaria or Romania, who will likely enter the Union earlier. Romania, in particular, was a 'feral nation,'" the US Embassy in Brussels said in a cable, one of the thousands of confidential diplomatic documents of the US State Department that were recently released by WikiLeaks.
Patten made his comments during discussions about EU expansion. The cable was sent to the US State Department towards the end of April 2004 when Romania and Bulgaria were not yet members of the EU. They joined in the last enlargement round on January 1, 2007.
Patten was surprised by a letter from the then chief prosecutor of the Hague war crimes tribunal, Carla de Ponte, who gave Croatia a passing grade for its cooperation with the tribunal even though the wanted Croatian general Ante Gotovina "was still at large inside Croatia."
"Patten said he too was surprised by del Ponte's letter, but once the referee had made the call, the EU was bound by her judgment," the US Embassy cable said.
