ZAGREB, April 10, 2018 – The Slovenian government will send a written request to the European Commission asking it to accept the role of a mediator in the dispute between Slovenia and Croatia over transferred savings accounts held by Croatian citizens in the now defunct, Yugoslav-era, Ljubljanska Banka Zagreb, Slovenian media reported on Tuesday referring to a statement by Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec.
“We will call on the European Commission to conduct mediation regarding the problem of transferred foreign currency savings accounts. The letter is being prepared by Finance Minister Mateja Vraničar Erman and will probably be signed by Prime Minister Miro Cerar. Whether the letter will be sent is a matter to be agreed to within the framework of Slovenia’s policies,” Erjavec said as carried by the Slovenia STA news agency.
In the event the EC agrees to mediate in the dispute and Croatia rejects that, or if the mediation is conducted but ends inconclusively, then Slovenia could sue Croatia before the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg, but that still isn’t being considered, Erjavec added.
Neither Cerar nor his minister Vraničar Erman, who is conducting the negotiations with the Commission to postpone the privatisation of Slovenia’s biggest bank, did not wish to comment on Erjavec’s statement.
The bank’s privatisation and the problem of its business operations prior to fresh capital being injected by the state in 2013, in an effort to bail out the bank due to accumulated bad loans, has become one of the main topics in the campaign ahead of the parliamentary elections, which are likely to be held at the end of May or early June.
The right-wing opposition claims that Cerar’s government is avoiding the sale of 75% of shares in the Nova Ljubljanska Banka because it doesn’t want to disclose who is responsible for the bank’s poor business operations which almost led to the banking system caving in in 2013, when it had to be salvaged with the taxpayers’ money.
