Slovenian leadership will meet on Thursday to discuss the issue.
Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar called a meeting of state leadership on Thursday to inform them about the current situation of the border arbitration dispute with Croatia and the implementation of the arbitration decision, reports Jutarnji List on September 6, 2017.
The meeting will be attended by Slovenian President Borut Pahor, presidents of the two houses of Slovenian Parliament Milan Brglez and Mitja Bervar, and heads of political parties.
The meeting should bring together positions of all political factors in Slovenia on the arbitration issue. It was demanded by the opposition parties, which reminded Prime Minister Cerar that he promised he would notify them about the course of events and the situation in relations with Croatia.
Although the Slovenian leadership is mostly united in the view that the arbitration decision is binding for Croatia, which Croatia denies, and that the only discussion with the Croatian government can be about its implementation, some leaders recently gave slightly different statements. This includes President Pahor, who called for patience and dialogue with Croatia so that Croatia would change its view that the arbitration process was compromised and that the arbitration decision does not bind it.
Pahor has started campaigning for his second presidential term, and he considers the arbitration agreement between the two countries a result of his efforts in negotiations with Croatia in 2009 when Croatian accession negotiations with the European Union were unblocked. Pahor was Slovenian Prime Minister at the time.
On the other hand, a firmer stance towards Croatia and the implementation of the arbitration decision would greatly assist Prime Minister Cerar and his party in next year’s parliamentary elections, given that the prime minister’s party and the government itself have been losing voters’ support for several months, according to the Slovenian media.
Asked about President Pahor’s more conciliatory stance in dialogue with Croatia, Slovenian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec said that the issue of arbitration and its implementation was in the domain of the government and not of the President.
Pahor’s office has confirmed that he will attend the Thursday’s meeting.
One of the topics will be a possible meeting between Cerar and Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković. According to the Slovenian media, Cerar is “still preparing” for the meeting and want to use it to reach an agreement on the implementation of the arbitration decision.
Cerar’s foreign minister and chief coalition partner Erjavec believes that the Croatian decision to consider the arbitration process invalid is “scandalous” and could worsen the situation in the region. He is sceptical towards the continuation of talks with the Croatian government and believes that Slovenia should implement the verdict on its own, at least as far as the boundary at sea is concerned, which has mainly been determined according to Slovenian demands.
Slovenian right-centre opposition has called a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Defence for the next week. It wants Defence Minister Andreja Katič and the leadership of the Slovenian Army to inform them whether Slovenia is militarily prepared to defend its interests with regards to the arbitration issue, if any border incidents were to occur.
Translated from Jutarnji List.
