ZAGREB, March 16, 2018 – The Croatian Foreign Ministry said on Friday Slovenia had neither grounds nor reasons to initiate proceedings against Croatia at the Court of Justice of the European Union “for allegedly breaching EU law.”
“As has been stated a number of times already, Croatia will know how to respond,” the ministry told Hina after the Slovenian government sent a letter to the European Commission, proposing the filing of a lawsuit against Croatia for its non-compliance with an international arbitration ruling on the Croatian-Slovenian border dispute. Slovenia plans to sue Croatia in line with Article 259 of the Lisbon Treaty.
The Commission today confirmed it received the letter and that it would study it. “We stand ready to mediate as we have done in the past in legal disputes of that kind,” spokesman Alexander Winterstein said. “This is a legal dispute between member states, one of them making use of the procedure set out in Article 259 (of the Treaty of Lisbon),” Winterstein said.
The EC now has three months to respond to Slovenia’s proposal. If it accepts it, it takes over the lawsuit. If the EC does not accept the proposal or does not respond to it, the member state which plans to file the lawsuit may do so before the Court of Justice of the EU. In formulating its position, the EC may call on the two sides to state their positions on the subject of the dispute.
