ZAGREB, April 9, 2019 – Slovenian Prime Minister Marjan Šarec has called for Tuesday afternoon an emergency session of the National Security Council over alleged activity by Croatia’s Security-Intelligence Agency (SOA) in Slovenia.
The Croatian ambassador to Slovenia was summoned by the Slovenian Foreign Ministry and the Slovenian ambassador to Croatia was called back to Ljubljana for consultation, the Slovenian STA news agency reported.
After Šarec earlier said that he was concerned about Croatia’s conduct because SOA had allegedly wiretapped conversations between the former Slovenian arbiter in Croatian-Slovenian border arbitration proceedings, Jernej Sekolec, and Slovenian official Simona Drenik in order to discredit the arbitration process, the affair escalated on Monday following claims on the Slovenian POP TV station that Croatian government mediator Ivan Tolj, the head of the Styria publishing company in Croatia, had tried to prevent the publication of a reportage on the wiretapping affair.
This prompted the Social Democrats (SD), a member of the Slovenian coalition government, to demand an urgent session of the Slovenian National Security Council, which Šarec accepted.
It was previously reported that Croatia’s Ambassador to Slovenia, Boris Grgić, was summoned by the Slovenian Foreign Ministry over the affair and that Slovenia’s Ambassador to Zagreb, Smiljana Knez, was called back by Ljubljana for consultation.
Šarec’s office said that the Slovenian prime minister “is concerned about an attempt by Croatian representatives to influence the reporting of POP TV about activities of the Croatian intelligence service” and that these “serious allegations” required “appropriate explanations”.
Such media pressure is “unacceptable and contrary to basic principles of democracy”, Šarec’s office said.
POP TV on Monday published a recording which it claims shows that Ivan Tolj, Styria’s representative for Croatia, tried to stop the broadcast of the TV station’s report about the involvement of Croatian intelligence agents in the wiretapping of conversations between Slovenian officials and judges with the aim of compromising the border arbitration proceedings and the subsequent arbitration ruling, which Croatia does not recognise.
More news about relations between Croatia and Slovenia can be found in the Politics section.
