In the first half of 2004, when the Netherlands held the rotating presidency of the European Union, Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot expressed frustration at the slow pace of Croatia's EU accession process, a cable from the US Embassy in The Hague shows.
During talks with the US Ambassador in The Hague, Clifford Sobel, Bot expressed frustration with the slow progress on Romania's and Croatia's accession.
"Romania was not even close to accession, he said, largely because of its lack of progress on competition area; while Croatia's failure to hand over Gotovina to the ICTY was a serious problem," said the US Embassy cable, released by the whistle-blower website Wikileaks.
"Bot said that he did not want the Dutch presidency to be remembered primarily for saying no to multiple candidates, and was talking intensively with the Commission to find a way to move forward," it added.
The confidential cable was created on March 12, 2004. Some 40 days later Croatia received a favourable opinion on its EU membership application, which was based on a favourable report by the chief prosecutor of the Hague war crimes tribunal (ICTY), Carla del Ponte, on Croatia's cooperation with the ICTY prosecutor's office, even though General Ante Gotovina was still at large at the time.
