A United Nations report will attack Croatia for its failure to hand over an indicted war criminal, a move that could hit the country's hopes of beginning membership talks with the European Union early next year.

The draft report by Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the UN's International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, says that Croatia has slowed down its efforts to find Ante Gotovina, a fugitive Croatian general, since the summer - when the EU formally accepted the country as a candidate for membership.