House of Cards crumbling.

Who will judge Carla del Ponte?

What will be her sentence?

How do you punish people who abuse their position of power?

How about all of the sentences together !

As below. This is potentially devastating for Del
Ponte. Not only does the Slovak PM apparently say he
is not convinced by her, this commission will make its
own mind up - and not rely on her info. Regardless of
outcome, this in itself damaging to Del Ponte's
credibility. Let alone if it decides against her.

Brian

Slovak Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda
said he was personally not convinced by the
previous reports of the chief ICTY prosecutor Carla
del Ponte, adding that to his view, she sounded as if
she was "punishing Croatia".

EU to send monitoring team to Croatia
23.03.2005 - 17:18 CET | By Lucia Kubosova
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – In a bid to keep an eye on
Croatia's progress themselves, EU leaders have decided
to set up a special taskforce to monitor Zagreb's
co-operation with the UN tribunal in The Hague.

The move comes after member states on 16 March decided
to postpone opening EU membership talks with Croatia
after a majority of governments felt themselves
unconvinced as to whether the country was fully
co-operating with the International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

The new team will take on board officials from the
current and future EU presidency countries –
Luxembourg, the UK and Austria - as well as the
European Commission and the EU foreign policy chief,
Javier Solana.

The Luxembourg Presidency is supposed to work out
details of the concrete tasks of the working group,
which is expected to release its evaluation report
about Zagreb’s progress in May.

Reacting to the proposal, Croat Prime Minister Ivo
Sanader welcomed the move saying "it is good for my
country to exploit the momentum."

He added "We will provide all which is required from
us to prove we are ready to co-operate with the
Tribunal".

Not a precedent
The monitoring team is to make its own judgment on
Croatia’s dealings with the UN tribunal.

EU foreign ministers will then study the conclusions
of the document and act accordingly – should there be
a positive outcome, member states could decide to
launch the negotiations with Croatia even before the
next scheduled summit of the European leaders in June.


Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg Prime Minister,
pointed out that the member states are not trying to
undermine the Commission and its role in monitoring EU
hopefuls and their readiness to start the EU talks.

"This particular case should not be viewed as a
precedent model for the future enlargements," Mr
Juncker told journalists after the European Council on
Wednesday 23 March.

Challenging The Hague?
The decision on future developments between the EU and
Croatia was not originally on the EU spring summit’s
agenda.

However, Austria and Slovakia were supported by some
other leaders in their initiative to put on the table
a draft for a new instrument to evaluate Zagreb’s
action towards the Hague.

"The crucial added value of the taskforce is that the
member states themselves will be finally involved in
judging to what extent Croatia is actually
co-operating with the Tribunal," said Slovak Prime
Minister Mikulas Dzurinda.

He said he was personally not convinced by the
previous reports of the chief ICTY prosecutor Carla
del Ponte, adding that to his view, she sounded as if
she was "punishing Croatia".

"Our initiative is not some kind of oath of loyalty
towards Croatia, but an attempt to clarify the vague
definitions of what it really means to prove 'full
co-operation' with the Tribunal, and mainly to make
certain that the judgment is not up to one single
person," pointed out Mr Dzurinda.

According to diplomatic sources, an increasing number
of member states showed clear support for a more
pro-active EU approach towards Zagreb during the
two-day summit.

Also, it has been suggested that some countries – such
as the UK – will be under more pressure to share the
information to which they had previously referred when
suggesting that Croatia was not co-operating
sufficiently.

The plan to set up an EU monitoring team for Croatia
is in line with similar proposals by MEPs. The
European Parliament's foreign committee recently sent
a letter to the Luxembourg presidency supporting such
a move.

But while MEPs also asked for negotiations to start in
the meantime and be halted if proof of lack of
co-operation is found by the EU monitoring group,
member states were apparently reluctant to move so
fast.