madam president we need to support to its conclusion the impressive work of the hague tribunal in bringing perpetrators of terrible crimes to justice and not impose an artificial cut-off because time pressures would prejudice fair trials while shortcuts would harm the safety of witnesses
while many lower-level cases have been successfully transferred to national courts some of them may be unable or unwilling to conduct criminal proceedings in accordance with international standards which means that transfers are sometimes being resisted by victims and witnesses
in order to permit the continuation of the icty's mandate we urge the council to encourage the security council to provide sufficient resources from its general budget not least to be able to retain key specialists and highly qualified staff
the tribunal must leave a sound legacy both as a model for other potential ad hoc tribunals and in order to contribute to the strengthening of justice in the balkan countries
there is a need for increased eu support for domestic war crimes investigations and trials and for the copenhagen criteria to include even more support for a well-trained and high-performing judiciary but the legacy of this is that the tribunal must also contribute to reconciliation and inter-ethnic understanding and the work of ngos deserves more resources
commissioner rehn reminds us that full cooperation with the icty is a condition of eu accession but the truth is as commissioner orban candidly told me last night in the absence of commissioner rehn that there is no unanimity in the council as to what that means
that has led to confusion and a consistent postponement of deadlines
much as we all want serbia and croatia to join the council commission and parliament must be united and firm in saying that indictees like <unk> and <unk> must be delivered and in the case of croatia evidence and witnesses facilitated
we cannot afford to relax these conditions
