ZAGREB, June 12, 2019 – The Court of Justice of the European Union has scheduled for July 8 a hearing on Slovenia’s border arbitration suit against Croatia, Slovenian media reported on Wednesday, citing information on the Court’s website.
The hearing will be held before the Grand Chamber. The suit was brought last year by the then Miro Cerar Cabinet. Cerar is now Slovenia’s foreign minister.
In the suit, Slovenia demands the Court find that Croatia, by failing to implement the border arbitration award, is violating the EU’s fisheries policy, Schengen rules on the movement of people across the border and the directive on a framework for maritime spatial planning.
Croatia announced in 2015 that it was walking out of the border arbitration proceedings after the release of recordings of covert contacts between Simona Drenik, then a representative of Slovenia’s Foreign Ministry, and Jernej Sekolec, Slovenia’s member of the arbitral tribunal.
Croatia’s decision was unanimously upheld by parliament. Since then, Croatian governments have maintained that the arbitration was irreversibly compromised and that the award eventually adopted by the arbiters has no legal effect or consequence.
Slovenia has refused Croatia’s proposal to resume talks on the bilateral issue on new grounds to find a mutually acceptable solution, claiming that talks are possible only on the implementation of the arbitration award and that Croatia, by rejecting the award, is breaking European and international law.
More news about the border arbitration issue can be found in the Politics section.
