"That's very good but now it's too late. They should have done it a few years ago (or) last year when the new Croatian government was formed," AFP quoted del Ponte as saying.
She said freezing Gotovina's assets served almost nothing because fugitives "don't keep money in a Swiss bank. They live off money being raised on a daily basis and which is given in cash".
The opening of Croatia's EU entry talks scheduled for March 17 might be postponed if Brussels assesses that Zagreb, which has failed to extradite Gotovina, does not cooperate fully with the UN court.
President Jacques Chirac said that as far as France was concerned, the EU could assume the obligation to open the talks as soon as the Council confirmed that Croatia's cooperation with the tribunal was complete, his spokesman Jerome Bonnafont said, adding that France supported the work of the Hague tribunal as well as efforts to capture runaway indictees.
Del Ponte was quoted as saying that Chirac was closely interested in the tribunal's problems and could help.
"I want Gotovina and am very grateful to the European Union for its support, because without its assistance it would be very difficult to catch them, and I'm waiting for all three," she said, mentioning Gotovina and alluding to Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.