ZAGREB, September 5, 2018 – Slovenia’s outgoing prime minister and future foreign minister Miro Cerar, in the coalition government to be led by Marjan Šarec, on Tuesday told Slovenia’s parliament that in his new position he will advocate the continuation of the country’s foreign policy and as far as the border dispute with Croatia is concerned, that matter has been resolved with the arbitration ruling.
Cerar claimed that the new Slovenian government won’t depart from its stance that Croatia is supposed to implement the arbitration ruling. “We will not depart from our stance,” Cerar told the parliamentary foreign affairs committee during an interview as the nominee for the new foreign minister.
He added, however, that he advocates good-neighbourly relations with all neighbouring countries, including Croatia, which permits dialogue too but not with regard to the essence of the arbitration ruling which needs to be implemented. “Slovenia has fulfilled its obligations pertaining to the arbitration agreement and has begun implementing the arbitration ruling while Croatia hasn’t done so,” Cerar said.
He added that, by not recognising and failing to implement the arbitration decision, which Slovenia considers to be the final solution for the border issue, Croatia is violating international and European law, which is why his government sued Croatia to the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
According to Cerar, even if the court in Luxembourg were to reject Slovenia’s complaint, that would not bring the validity of the arbitration decision into question.
Cerar said that he would be quite pleased if Croatia were to decide to recognise and implement the arbitration ruling before the EU court delivers its decision regarding the compliance with European law and that that does not exclude possible meetings at the expert level with Croatia.
Slovenia insists on the implementation of 2017 arbitration decision, whereas Croatia considers that the entire process was compromised and as a result pulled out of the process and has offered bilateral negotiations regarding the border dispute.
