The EU delayed the start of entry talks wth Croatia Wednesday due to its failure to find a key war crimes suspect, ignoring Zagreb's insistent protests that it is already doing all it can.
But while refusing to start talks as planned this week, the EU underlined said that its door will be open to the former Yugoslav country as soon as it provides "full cooperation" with UN prosecutors in the Hague.
Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader immediately voiced disappointment at the move -- the first time an EU candidate state's hopes have been put on hold -- triggered by lack of progress in the hunt for fugitive general Ante Gotovina.
"I cannot but express my dissatisfaction with this conclusion," Sanader told the European Parliament minutes after EU foreign ministers agreed the widely-anticipated delay.
"We are fully cooperating with the Hague," he added.
Gotovina, a 49-year-old retired general, is considered a war hero by many Croatians but is wanted by the UN war crimes court for the alleged murder of at least 150 ethnic Serbs during the final stages of Croatia's 1991-95 war.
He is also accused of plundering Serbs' property during the war, when Serb rebels opposed Croatia's breakaway from the former Yugoslavia.
Croatia, hoping to be the second former Yugoslav republic to join the EU as early as 2007 -- Slovenia became the first last May -- was told in December that it could in theory start talks with Brussels on March 17.
But an EU green light was conditional on providing "full cooperation" with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
The court's chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte reiterated this week that Croatia is still not providing full cooperation, despite a last-minute announcement from Zagreb that it had frozen Gotovina's assets.
That assessment left the vast majority of EU states -- 21 out of 25 -- opposed to starting talks with Zagreb. Only Croatia's near neighbors Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia backed launching talks.
Croatia's prime minister said, "Croatia is and will be the anchor of stability in this part of Europe."
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