In line with a significant future development of the situation and close cooperation with the ICTY, the Council will again and on time focus on that issue, based on a verbal report made by the task force, the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg and president of the EU Council, Jean Asselborn, said reading a statement on behalf of the EU Presidency.
The five-member task force, comprised of the foreign ministers of Luxembourg, Great Britain and Austria and EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana and EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, held separate talks first with del Ponte and then with the Croatian delegation.
Croatian PM Ivo Sanader expressed satisfaction with the meeting adding that he did not expect that "a decision will be made today, given that the task force is not authorised to make any decision" stressing that decisions were being made by the EU Council.
"If there has been some progress today it is that we have re-established dialogue and regained trust," Sanader said. He added that he informed the task force of a number of measures Croatia had taken since March 16 regarding the resolving of the general Ante Gotovina case. He also announced a plan with six items Croatia will implement in the next six months.
Asselborn said the EU would closely observe the implementation of the plan which the Croatian PM declined to explain in detail.
Prosecutor del Ponte did not change her previous position, namely that Croatia was not cooperating fully with the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Our positions did not change, del Ponte said. At the moment Croatia is not fully cooperating with the Hague tribunal, the prosecutor stressed after the talks with the EU task force.
She said Gotovina was in Croatia and that he occasionally travelled to Bosnia, namely that he was in the reach of the Croatian authorities.
The prosecutor said she had informed the EU task force about the network harbouring the runaway general.