"Slovenia explicitly supported Croatia's efforts to start the negotiations on March 17," Stokelj said in an interview with the Slovene STA news agency on Thursday, adding that the start of EU entry talks with Croatia was of strategic importance to Slovenia because of the introduction of European standards.
"Full cooperation with The Hague (war crimes tribunal) is also important for all other countries in the region. Slovenia believes that of them all Croatia has made the greatest progress and thus largely contributed to the stabilisation of the situation in the Balkans," the Slovene representative on COREPER said.
Stokelj said that the position of his government was that Croatia should prove it was doing all in its power to track down fugitive general Ante Gotovina and transfer him to The Hague, but that full cooperation did not explicitly mean that Gotovina would be found and handed over to The Hague by March 17.
A final decision on the start or postponement of talks will be made by EU foreign ministers at a meeting next week after they weigh their arguments again, the ambassador said.