Slovenian Prime Minister Cerar and Foreign Minister Erjavec are in open disagreement.
Different statements and positions related to relations with Croatia given by Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar and his Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec are not a tactical move, but a genuine reflection of their differences which are only getting larger, claims Slovenian daily Večer in a commentary on the latest disagreements between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister who advocates for a much more radical position towards Croatia due to the border arbitration dispute, reports tportal.hr on October 2, 2017.
According to the media, it is a latent conflict which has now become public, after Cerar criticised Erjavec, complaining that he used his statements about the government’s session, when he said they were preparing a lawsuit against Croatia, to make himself and his party more popular ahead of the elections next year.
Several days later, Cerar stated that Erjavec’s statements were hurtful for Slovenia and actually benefited Croatia, adding that the Minister should use less harsh words. However, Erjavec did not calm down but immediately replied that the Prime Minister was wrong and that Croatia needed to be pressured, as long as the Croatian government did not agree to the implementation of the arbitration decision on the maritime border in the Bay of Piran.
The unity in public positions about the arbitration decision, which is one of Cerar’s goals, lasted for just a few days because the opposition privately expressed their disappointment with the arbitrator’s decision which did not grant Slovenia a territorial contact with the open sea by a corridor in which Slovenia would have sovereignty. They are also dissatisfied with most decisions pertaining to the land border with Croatia as well.
On the other hand, the latent conflict between Cerar and Erjavac began immediately after the surprising statement by the Minister that the first meeting between the Slovenian Prime Minister and his Croatian counterpart in Ljubljana was unnecessary, just like the possible second meeting in Zagreb which was expected last month, and which Cerar later abandoned.
Disagreements over some of the legislative proposals which are currently in the parliamentary procedure will be solved probably on Wednesday, at a second such meeting in just ten days. It is believed that the Slovenian parties will discuss the differences in their positions on how to solve the arbitration dispute with Croatia, as well as about Erjavec’s statements, which Cerar considers hurtful for Slovenian interests since they send wrong signals to Zagreb, as well as Brussels.
Both Slovenian Prime Minister Cerar and his Croatian counterpart Plenković met recently separately with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and presented to her the reasons for their positions towards the implementation of the arbitration decision.
Translated from tportal.hr.
